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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CHEISTIANITY 



VIEWED IN SOME OF 



ITS LEADING ASPECTS. 



BY REV. A. L. R. FOOTE, 

AUTHOR OP INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF OUR SAYIOR. 



EDITED BY REV. D. Vv\ CLARK, D. D. 




(JTituinnati: 

PUBLISHED BY POE & HITCHCOCK, 

rOil THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AT THE WESTERN BOOK 
CONCERN, CORNER OF MAIN AND EIGHTH STREETS. 

R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER. 
1800. 



f uto <rf t\t ^mtm tifciittt. 



This work is eminently calculated to nourish 
a sound and healthy tone of religious feeling, 
principle, and activity. It is written in a pure 
and fervid spirit, strong and clear in statement, 
lucid and invincible in argument, and, at the 
same time, is expressed in a most pleasing and 
attractive diction. The Christian, and espe- 
cially the Christian minister, will find in it "the 
seeds of thought," and the springs of religious 
improvement. With striking facility, it makes 
havoc of the false notions of humanity and of 
religion that are so rife at the present day; 
and, at the same time, it presents true Chris- 
tianity in its pure and strong light, and the 
relations of human nature to it. We send the 
work forth with the unhesitating conviction that 

it will commend itself to thinking Christians 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

every-where. The only liberty the American 
editor has taken with the text was such as he 
deemed necessary to adapt it to the circulation 
for which it is designed on this side of the 
Atlantic. 



Irafat* to t\t ingfel] €Mfeni 



Every one who keeps pace with the religious 
literature of his age, must he struck with the 
number of books which bear on their title- 
page the word " Christianity. " 

It is an extremely-general term this, and the 
first feeling of the mind is one of disappoint- 
ment, if not of positive dissatisfaction, with 
what is so indefinite. And yet, after all, it is a 
fine old, time-hallowed word this Christianity. 
It can plead high antiquity, if not Divine au- 
thority, in its favor. The disciples were first 
called Christians in Antioch. Nor would it be 
easy to find a single word, a general term — 
and we must have general terms — that better 
answers the purpose, embodying, as it does, 
that One Name in which it all originates, exhib- 
iting that Divine Person who is the central 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

object of it. "When rightly understood, it 
brings us back to Christ himself, and to the 
glass of the Gospel in which his blessed image 
may be discerned ; and thus, losing all its ab- 
stractedness and indefmiteness, it becomes a 
term of vast meaning and compass, at once 
broad and distinct, at once catholic and Scrip- 
tural. There is nothing narrow or sectarian 
about it, and it reminds us, therefore — and do 
we not need to be reminded? — that there is a 
substantial unity of faith as to the great facts 
and truths of the Gospel among all who have 
been brought to bow in reverence to the in- 
spired volume — a unity which they are more 
likely to become sensible of, in proportion as 
they find attacks made upon the very substance 
of their religion. 

There is a growing feeling upon this point. 
And is it not this that has led to the fact to 
which we have adverted at the outset? It is 
now no longer a question about various forms 
of Christian truth; but it has come %) this, 
Have we a Christianity at all? Is there any 



PREFACE. ( 

thing in the Gospel of a distinct, substantive, 
specific character ? It is not so much its form 
that is assailed as its substance. We are thus 
driven to the defense of the citadel rather than 
of the outworks. Christianity is being tried 
upon its merits. And need we be afraid of 
this? Should we not rather come boldly for- 
ward, and try, at least, as we best can, to show 
what Christianity really is — to exhibit its inner 
truth, its native grandeur, its perfect adaptation 
to man? 

If the reader keep these things in view, it 
will help him the better to understand the 
direction of much of the most interesting re- 
ligious literature of the day. It will explain 
the aim and end of the following chapters. 
They are not wholly, indeed, but in a great 
measure, for the times. They are not the result 
of any very definite and preconceived plan, but 
arose, one after the other, from associations in 
the writer's own mind, which the reader might 
not understand, or, if he understood, might not 
feel much interest in. They would not have 



8 PREFACE. 

been published at all, so imperfect are they as 
exhibitions of Christianity in its more deep and 
spiritual aspects, if others had not thought 
them not unsuited for a certain class of readers. 



€ itt tn l s . 



PAGE. 
I. CHRISTIANITY A LIFE 13 

II. CHRISTIANITY A WORK 45 

ni. CHRISTIANITY A REWARD 71 

IY. CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE .....101 

V. CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE 131 

VI. CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP 155 

9 



CHRISTIANITY 



IN 



SOME OF ITS LEADING ASPECTS. 



11 



I. 

CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 

" This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only- 
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." John 
xvii, 3. 

It is of great importance to entertain wide 
and comprehensive views of Christianity. Al- 
most all errors have arisen from taking partial 
views of it; and perhaps the best way, after 
all, of counteracting these partial views is not 
by attacking them directly and separately, but 
by bringing them into harmonious combina- 
tion, and showing that there is really no con- 
tradiction and incompatibility between them. 
There is a greater or less measure of truth in 
each of them, but not the whole truth. They 
are but half-truths at best, some of them only 
mere fractions of the truth, which have seized 
hold of the mind, to the exclusion of other 
portions and aspects of it; and it does appear 

to me, that he would confer the greatest benefit 

18 



14 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

on our common Christianity who, gathering 
these scattered and fragmentary conceptions 
together into one grand whole, would present 
it to the contemplation of men in all its di- 
mensions and proportions, in all its grandeur 
and symmetry. For this end he must lay 
aside all party-spirit, and, taking his stand 
upon the broad and elevated platform of Scrip- 
ture, endeavor to survey with minuteness at 
once and breadth of view the wide field that 
stretches 6ut before him and around him. No 
where but in the Bible is this broad, entire, 
universal Christianity to be found; nor is it 
to be found even there wrapped up in a single 
verse — except by implication, a method which is 
open to many risks — but it must be sought for 
with painstaking care and diligence through- 
out every one of its inspired pages. 

In the passage before us we have a very full 
exhibition of Christianity, fitted to correct cer- 
tain partial and one-sided views of it. Various 
important and essential elements are brought 
forward as entering into it, and constituting 
it. First of all, there is the vital element — 
This is life eternal; then there is the intel- 
lectual element — That they might know; then 
there is the personal element — Thee; then 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 15 

there is the theistic element — The only true 
Grod; and then there is the evangelic element — 
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent Not one 
of these elements can be left out without ma- 
terially injuring Christianity — without impair- 
ing its fullness, and weakening its efficiency. 
Leave out the first, the vital element, and you 
reduce it to a mere form. Leave out the sec- 
ond, the intellectual element, and you make 
Christianity a wholly-emotional thing— a mere 
matter of feeling. Leave out the third, the 
personal element, and you deprive it of all 
form and substance. Leave out the fourth, 
the theistic element, and you lose sight of its 
ethical or moral character. Leave out the last, 
the evangelic element, and you bring it down 
to the level of natural religion. Let us advert 
to each of these elements separately, and then 
let us consider what a beautiful and harmonious 
whole is the result. 

First of all, then, we take up the vital or 
life element: "It is life eternal/' Christianity 
is a life. It is something more, indeed, as we 
shall see as we advance. This is only one 
aspect of it; but it is a very important aspect. 
Christianity, we repeat, is a life; that is, real, 
personal, concrete Christianity is so. It is this, 



16 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

or it is nothing to nie, so far as I am individually 
concerned. If it has not brought life to my 
soul, a new life to which previously I was a 
stranger — a spiritual life, ay, a divine life — in- 
dicating plainly its origin to be of God by its 
desire to return to him in love, and trust, and 
fellowship — if Christianity has not done this, 
there might as well be none for me, that is, for 
any good it has done me. There is still a 
Christianity revealed in the Bible, and experi- 
enced in the hearts of those who have actually 
embraced it, and come under its influence. But 
what is all this to me, if Christianity form not a 
part of my experience, of my history, of my 
inner life ? Practically it is nothing. It is well, 
indeed, there is a Christianity independent of 
me — out of me altogether, and out of every 
man — exhibited, as to its ground, its nature, 
its effects, in the only inspired and authorita- 
tive standard of faith and practice. This is 
well; for by the continual holding up of this 
high, definite, fixed standard, I may be taught 
my deficiency, and my need of a decided 
change to constitute me a living embodiment of 
Christianity. But till this is the case, Chris- 
tianity is, to all practical purposes, a name, and 
nothing but a name, to me. For only conceive 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 17 

that I should die in this state of separation 
from it ? what end would it serve in reference 
to my moral destiny, except the melancholy 
one of making that destiny darker than it 
would have been if I had never heard of it? 
There is a Christianity without, and there is 
a Christianity within; and it is right that, for 
certain purposes, they should be distinguished. 
But it is a grievous error wdien they are sepa- 
rated; and is it not a strange perversity in 
the human mind that leads to this separation? 
You believe there is an external, objective 
Christianity, consisting of a system of facts 
and truths revealed in Scripture. Right, most 
right. Never lose sight of this; let nothing 
shake your confidence in this. But why lose 
sight of this other point, that there is an 
internal, subjective Christianity, consisting of 
these facts and truths received into the mind, 
and given forth again, stamped with the per- 
son's own individuality — bearing the hues and 
forms of his own experience — the very breath 
and motion of his new-born existence? It is 
then and thus that Christianity becomes truly 
vital. It becomes then a life — "life eternal." 
The soul begins to live, in the true sense of 
that profound term — to live to God; nay, to 



18 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

live the very life of God — an immortal, blessed, 
spiritual life ! 

Yes; Christianity is a life. It is a great 
truth, and, we fear, too much lost sight of. 
There is need for its being brought forth froix 
its obscurity, and urged unceasingly upon oui 
hearers. Christianity is a life. Unfortunately 
this has become the watchword of a school 
grievously unsound in its doctrinal theology. 
It is the one idea of their creed. Neverthe- 
less, it is a truth, so far as it goes; a deep 
truth — a grand and glorious truth — a much for- 
gotten truth. And shall we leave them in 
possession of this great truth? Shall we be 
afraid to proclaim it, lest we be misunderstood ? 
No; we will take from them any advantage 
they may have obtained from the statement of 
it. We will show that it is not peculiar to 
them. We, too, will raise the cry — Christian 
ity is a life. We will let it be known how 
thoroughly we hold this truth, and in a far 
deeper sense than they do. For, while their 
life is a shallow, mystical, baseless, inexplica- 
ble thing — self-originated, fed from within — 
ours is a life that pervades and energizes the 
whole soul — that is imparted from above — that 
is nourished from infinite fullness — that will 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 19 

"bear scrutiny as to its nature and actings — that 
can be brought to a definite test — and that is 
conversant, not with the ideal, but with the real, 
the actual, the personal. 

Thus do we hold Christianity to be a life — 
not in any mysterious, magical, mystical way, 
but in a manner consonant with Scripture at 
once and reason. How, then, is Christianity a 
life? It is so, because it is a system in con- 
nection with which Divine influence is imparted 
to quicken the soul " dead in trespasses and 
sins," raising up its prostrate powers, enlight- 
ening the understanding, awakening the con- 
science, renewing the w^ill and affections. It is 
so, because it is a system which exhibits those 
views of the Divine character that reawaken 
the soul's love and confidence. It is so, be- 
cause it is a system which brings reconciliation, 
full forgiveness — grace, in short, in all the full- 
ness of that comprehensive word. 

Has Christianity thus vitalized our souls? 
Have we experienced its life-giving power? 
Can we say, "To me to live is Christ;" "Christ 
liveth in me?" Ah! these are expressions, the 
full import of which is known only to those to 
whom Christianity has become a life. And 
how few are these ! 



20 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Secondly. The intellectual or truth element: 
66 That they might know." Christianity is a 
life. It is a great truth this ; and yet it is only 
a half-truth. You say, and you say perpetu- 
ally, Christianity is a life. You denounce sys- 
tems — you decry the letter, as you are pleased 
to call it, of Scripture — you abjure the creed 
of Christendom — you protest against the intro- 
duction of the intellect into the domain of 
religion, "which, you say, is not an affair of the 
understanding, but — of what ? You can hardly 
tell. Either you know not well yourself, or you 
do not wish to be urged to explicitness on such 
a topic. Be that as it may, you are a determ- 
ined opponent of intellectualism. Christianity, 
you insist, is a life — a matter of feeling — an 
intuition; it lies too deep to be fathomed — it 
defies expression — it shuns observation — it is 
something too fine, too ethereal, to be laid hold 
of, and manipulated by the rude hand of the 
theologian : its forms may vary, but there it is, 
the same divine, unchanging, immutable thing 
in all good men, in all ages. Christianity, in 
short, is not a creed, but a life. 

There is an air of wisdom and of spiritualism 
in all this, that is very apt to impose upon shal- 
low and undisciplined minds — minds not inured 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 21 

to much close and exact thinking. And, in 
point of fact, multitudes are led away by it, 
and are fast giving up all that is of a definite 
and substantive character in religion. 

Now, waiving for the present many objections 
that might be urged against this new assault 
upon our doctrinal Christianity, we shall confine 
ourselves to this one objection, which is fatal to 
the whole theory. Christianity is a life. Be 
it so ; but our difficulty is how, upon your prin- 
ciples, this life is originated. Let us see. 
Either the life produces the Christianity, or the 
Christianity the life. If the former is the true 
state of the case, then we see not of what use 
Christianity is at all, since it is an effect and 
expression of life rather than its cause. If the 
latter is the true state of the case, then where 
is Christianity to be found anterior to its pro- 
ducing life ? and by what channel does it reach 
the soul and quicken it ? 

Where is Christianity to be found anterior to 
its producing life in the soul? Now, Ave de- 
mand a distinct answer to this question. It is 
a point that must be settled beyond the possi- 
bility of doubt. There must be no uncertain 
sound given forth in reference to it. It will 
not do to refer us to something called a stream 



22 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of life, flowing down, through all ages, from the 
Author of Christianity himself, enkindled in 
some mysterious way in the souls of those who 
conversed with him, and saw his glory. It will 
not do to refer us to something termed the uni- 
versal Christian consciousness.. This is only 
removing the difficulty a step farther back. 
The question still presses upon us, What is the 
origin and nature of this life — this conscious- 
ness which has all along existed in the Church ? 
Vv T e can not prove a thing hy itself. We are 
thus as much at sea as ever. Where is Chris- 
tianity to be found? What is it? Where is 
that fountain whence life in all ages — so far as 
it is true, genuine life, and not one or other of 
its many specious counterfeits — has issued? 
Where is that test by which the ever-varying 
and ofttimes contradictory consciousness of those 
professing to be Christ's disciples may be tried ? 
Is there such a fountain? Is there such a test? 
In the very nature of things there must be. 
This fountain, this test is the Bible. Here, and 
here only, is Christianity, in its true character 
and claims, clearly and authoritatively revealed. 
The Bible is the safe and sure deposit of the 
sacred treasure of Christianity throughout all 
ages. Opinions vary, systems change, Churches 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 23 

rise and decay — the Bible alone is infallible and 
immutable. It holds the same language from 
age to age. In proportion as it is lost sight of, 
the life of the Church declines ; and every re- 
vival it experiences arises out of a return to 
this only rule and measure, origin and food of 
the spiritual life. Such, then, is the place that 
belongs to the truth, to doctrinal truth in this 
matter. We must not think or speak lightly 
of this. It is the glass in which we discern the 
image of our absent Lord. It is the revelation 
of his character and mission. It is the medium 
of our converse with him. It is the first, 
though not the ultimate ground of our faith. 
It is the light that guides us to Him, in whom 
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead — in 
whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge — in whom we have eternal life. We 
must stand up for the truth — for God's truth — 
for it is a priceless treasure. We must be 
valiant for the truth upon the earth. This is 
a point on which we can not afford to be neu- 
tral, and in which no compromise is lawful. 
We must take care, indeed, that it is the simple, 
unadulterated truth of Scripture we exalt to 
this supremacy over the human mind. But we 
must equally beware of that latitudinarianism 



24 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

which would lead us to ask the skeptical ques- 
tion of Pilate, What is truth ? 

This is the first point. Then the second is, 
By what channel does the truth reach the soul, 
and quicken it? Now, this is the place that 
belongs to the intellect — the intellect spiritually 
enlightened, no doubt, but still the intellect. 
The truth must be known, must be intelligently 
embraced, ere it can impress its likeness on the 
mind. " Ye shall know the truth," says Christ, 
"and the truth shall make you free." There 
are many other passages in which the intel- 
lectual element is distinctly recognized. You 
can not, therefore, banish the intellect from the 
sphere of religion — any more than any other 
portion of your complex nature — without great 
injury. And whence this anxiety in certain 
quarters to effect a separation between religion 
and the intellect? The reason is plain. They 
are afraid of the intellect. They know that 
their religion is of so groundless, flimsy, unsub- 
stantial a character, that it will not bear to be 
viewed in the light of the understanding. It is 
an unworthy stratagem to get rid of Scripture 
truth altogether, and sweep away, one after 
another, all the peculiar and fundamental doc- 
trines of the Gospel. It is life eternal, says 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 25 

our text, not to feel merely, or believe merely, 
but to K3"0W. This, in fact, is the basis of the 
whole ; for we must know ere we can either 
believe or feel. A religion devoid of intellect- 
ualism is wanting in depth and permanence. 
It is a nickering light that often leads astray; 
and in an age such as this, when error in every 
form is abroad, and truth in every form is ques- 
tioned, it seems especially necessary that we 
should aim at being intelligent Christians ; that 
w T e should know what we believe, and why we 
believe it; that we should be able to give a 
" reason for the hope that is in us;" that, in 
short, all the powers of our minds being put 
forth upon the truth, we should take so firm 
and comprehensive a grasp of it, that nothing 
can move us away from the faith. We confess 
ourselves to be exceedingly jealous for the main- 
tenance in our Christianity of the intellectual 
element, in its right sense, and in due propor- 
tion. For this it is, after all, that will invest 
our religion with such dignity and grandeur, 
as that it shall command the veneration of the 
world, who are but too ready to despise relig- 
ious people for their want of intellectuality; 
and that will impart to our religion such 
strength and substance, as that it shall with- 



26 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

stand the rude shocks to which it must be ex- 
posed in a world like this. 

Thirdly. The personal element: "Thee." 
Christianity is a life. Let us keep hold of this 
truth. It is the leadings central idea. Life 
eternal ; this is the grand thought of the 
passage. Life ! what is it ? We must look 
more closely into this subject ; we must en- 
deavor to fathom this thing called life. Life ! 
it is a very marvelous attribute this of life ; it 
is the great mystery of the universe, the mys- 
tery of mysteries. Life, in any form and de- 
gree, is so ; how much more life in its highest 
manifestations ! It is the life of the soul of 
which we here treat; and what can the true 
and proper life of the soul be — of such a soul 
as man's — a soul formed originally after the 
Divine image — a soul of vast capacities and 
endless duration ? I answer, it is God alone — 
the only living and true God — God himself, 
communicating to .me, as can be communicated 
to a finite being, his own blessed and immortal 
life. I must be brought, somehow or other, 
into union and communion with him, the fount- 
ain of life. I must be restored to his image, 
and favor, and fellowship, I must be "renewed 
in knowledge, after the image of him that 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 27 

created me." No truth, simply as truth — no sys- 
tem, simply as a system — no ordinance, simply 
as an ordinance, can be the life of my soul, in 
the highest sense. All these, of themselves, 
leave the soul empty, barren, lifeless as before. 
These may be inferior channels of life, but they 
are not themselves the life. It is not in them; 
and what they have not, they can not communi- 
cate. I must look for life where life resides in 
all its fullness. The soul's death is separation 
from God; the soul's life is restoration to God. 
In him, both in a natural and spiritual sense, 
"we live, and move, 'and have our being." The 
realization of this great truth is the first awak- 
ening of life in the soul; and as life increases, 
the soul is cleaving faster and faster to the 
living and life-giving Jehovah, the I am that I 
AM — a name, this, expressive of this great 
truth, that he only has life in and of himself. 
The scheme of redemption is based on this. 
"As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he 
given to the Son to have life in himself." The 
whole power of Christianity to vitalize the soul 
lies in the existence of the personal element — 
in the actual presence and power of a personal 
God, and a personal Savior, put forth upon the 
individual soul. And forasmuch as knowledge, 



28 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

like faith, is the bond of union and communion 
between the soul and God, on the part of man, 
we see at once the nature of the connection be- 
tween eternal life and the knowledge of him. 
It is not so much that the life flows from the 
knowledge as a distinct thing. The life and the 
knowledge, as matters of experience, are all one. 
The rise of life in the soul is identified with the 
rise of knowledge; and ever after, the progress 
of the one is proportionally as the progress of 
the other. It is the same thing viewed from 
different sides. From the side of God it is life, 
because life is his gift. From the side of man 
it is knowledge, because this is his act or exer- 
cise of mind. The whole power of Christian- 
ity, we repeat, to vitalize the soul, lies in the 
existence of the personal element. For look 
again at the text: " This is life eternal, that 
they might know Thee;" not the truth merely, 
not the Gospel, but Thee. And this throws 
light upon the nature of the knowledge here 
spoken of — the nature of that intellectual ele- 
ment which we have shown to be an essential 
ingredient in personal Christianity. You will 
observe that eternal life is connected with the 
knowledge, the simple knowledge of God and 
Christ. Now, are we not at first rather stum- 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 29 

bled at this ? We say, how can this be ? Do 
we not find persons possessed of the knowledge 
of Christianity, who have no spiritual life in 
their souls ? And how do we meet this appar- 
ent contradiction between Scripture and actual 
experience? We say, their knowledge can not 
be of the right kind; it is not saving knowl- 
edge, it is not spiritual knowledge, and so on. 
And, therefore, with the view of correcting the 
text of Scripture, and preventing the abuse of 
it, we read it thus : This is life eternal, that 
they might savingly, spiritually know thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou 
hast sent. But there are no such words as sav- 
ingly and spiritually in the original, and surely 
if they had been necessary they would have 
been introduced. Our Savior's words are 
simply, that they might hioiv. Would it not 
be better, therefore, instead of almost always 
directing people's minds to the act itself of 
knowing, to direct them more frequently rather 
to the object — the person to be known ? This 
would determine the nature of the knowledge 
required, as well as call it into exercise. Scrip- 
ture does not define, at least in any formal way, 
either faith or knowledge ; and the explanation 
is this: it sets before us the proper objects of 



30 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

faith and knowledge, and trusts to their mak- 
ing, when realized, the right impression upon 
the mind. It does not tell you how to believe, 
or how to know. How could it ? It could use 
no definition that would not leave the matter as 
great a mystery as before. Besides, this would 
have been drawing away our regards from the 
truth itself to the operations of our own minds. 
What, then, is the explanation of our nowa- 
days deeming it necessary to guard those simple 
words, faith and knowledge, from abuse, by 
qualifying them, and making additions to them? 
It is this : We have too much lost sight of their 
proper objects. We have overlooked too much 
the personal element. We have dealt too ex- 
clusively with abstract doctrines, which, in their 
own nature, can not give birth to any thing but 
purely-abstract and dialectical states of mind; 
and so we need to draw distinctions, and to 
speak of saving and speculative faith, saving 
and speculative knowledge — distinctions which 
are quite unintelligible to those for whom they 
are designed, just because the spiritual char- 
acter of those acts presupposes the spiritual 
character of their objects. It is life eternal 
to know Thee. Ah! there lies the secret of 
that knowledge which is eternal life. I must 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 31 

either know Him, or not know Him. There is 
no middle state of mind. If I have not the 
knowledge which is eternal life, it is not the 
true God and the true Christ that I have been 
contemplating, but a figment of my own imag- 
ination — an unsubstantial conception of my own 
mind. True, the knowledge of a divine and 
spiritual being must needs be a spiritual knowl- 
edge, the result of a spiritual influence upon 
the mind. But here, as in every other depart- 
ment, the nature of the knowledge depends 
primarily on the nature of the thing known; 
and we do think that by far the most effectual 
way of dealing with the unrenewed is, instead 
of telling them that they do not know aright 
and believe aright, to assure them they do not 
believe and know the God and the Savior of the 
Bible at all. 

Fourthly. The theistie or Grod element: 
"The only true God." Christianity is a life. 
It is a beautiful view this, and correct as it is 
beautiful. It is truly a most profound view, 
going right to the heart of it, and bringing to 
light its hidden nature. It is a most compre- 
hensive view, taking in with one sweep its high- 
est and most far-reaching results. Christianity 
is a life — the very life of God in the soul of 



32 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

man; bringing God and man together again in 
sympathy and fellowship, uniting them again in 
righteousness and true holiness, which is the life 
that God leads — the very breath of the Divine 
existence. Christianity is not so much an end 
itself as a means to an end, and this is the 
end — the re-enthroning of God in the heart 
of man, so that it shall not be so much I that 
live, but God that lives in me — every pulse of 
my new life throbbing in unison with God's — 
my heart beating responsive to his heart — my 
understanding the faint reflection of his under- 
standing — my will the echo of his will; this 
is a grand and elevating view of Christianity, 
and we can not help thinking, that if there 
is too little of Christ in the Christianity of 
some, there is too little of Grod in the Chris- 
tianity of others. True; Christ is God. But 
we speak now of the Godhead generally, with 
a more special reference to the Godhead of 
the Father. Have you never marked how 
much Christ speaks of his Father ? He is the 
Father's servant; he sought not his own glory, 
but the glory of the Father ; he came not to do 
his own will, but the will of the Father. His 
mission was to bring men back to God, in 
subjection to his authority, in resemblance to his 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 33 

image, in the enjoyment of his favor now, and 
of his presence hereafter. His object was not 
to come between us and God — to hide him 
from our view as a vail, or defend us from him 
as a shield. He is the Mediator between God 
and man; he heals the breach; he brings the 
parties again into an amicable relation. We 
are accustomed to say that the person of Christ 
is the ultimate and terminating object of faith; 
and this is true so far. He is so as in contrast 
with other Saviors, or with the truth, which 
does nothing more, and can do nothing more, 
than exhibit him. But not as in contrast with 
the other Persons; for the ultimate and term- 
inating object of faith, as well as of all other 
religious homage, is the Divine Nature— the 
whole Godhead, especially the first Person, as 
in a sense representing the others. Mark this 
passage, in 1 Peter i, 21, "Who by him do 
believe in God, that raised him up from the 
dead, and gave him glory ; that your faith and 
hope might be in God" — by Mm, that is, by 
Christ, through a medium — in Ciod ultimately, 
as a final end. Now, is not all this a good 
deal lost sight of in our popular Christianity? 
Is there not a tendency to leave God out in it? 
is there not an extreme type of evangelism, 



34 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

which regards Christianity as a scheme for 
effecting men's salvation merely? Salvation! 
this is the one idea of this Christianity. But 
salvation — as commonly understood, at least — 
expresses only the negative side of Christianity, 
which is far more than deliverance from cer- 
tain dreaded evils. The positive side of Chris- 
tianity is, that it is a life — that it exhibits the 
glory of the Divine character, and vindicates 
the honor of the Divine government — that it 
writes anew the law of God in the heart of 
man — that it makes the rebel a willing subject 
of the "King eternal, immortal, and invisi- 
ble" — that, in short, it makes God all in all. 
But the exaggerated form of evangelism to 
which we refer, makes little or nothing of the 
theistic element; man's salvation is everything; 
God's supremacy, nothing. It is a purely-self- 
ish Christianity this. It dishonors Christ. 
Under the idea of exalting him, by making 
him the Alpha and Omega — the first, middle, 
and end — it really dishonors him, by counter- 
acting the grand end of his mission. It dis- 
honors God, for it displaces him from his own 
position as the supreme object of worship and 
the moral governor of the universe. And such 
a Christianity, being deprived of the theistic 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 35 

element, is deprived of its etiiical character. 
Such themes as the divine being and perfec- 
tions, the moral law, the judgment to come, 
divine providence, the claims of humanity, and 
many other kindred topics, all bearing upon 
the character of God, form a part of Chris- 
tianity, as well as those points which bear di- 
rectly upon the individual's own safety and 
peace. A Christianity without Christ, without 
his grace and righteousness, is not the Chris- 
tianity of the New Testament; as little is a 
Christianity without God, without his law, and 
his supremacy. You love to hear of Christ 
and his free salvation ; this is the Gospel, you 
say. But you do not love to hear much of 
God, of his sovereign authority, of his infinite 
majesty, and other attributes! This you stig- 
matize as legalism — as mere natural religion, 
forsooth! You love to hear of Jesus Christ, 
but not of the true God that sent him — of the 
sent, but not of the sender — of the .embassa- 
dor, but not of the king — of the gift, but not 
of the giver. Surely there is something very 
far wrong here, grievously wrong, dangerously 
wrong. It is making Christ the minister of 
sin; it is virtual Antinomianism. Let us be 
assured that a Christianity which thus makes 






36 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY, 

light of God is as unscriptural as that "which 
makes light of Christ. 

Fifthly. The evangelic or Christ element: 
"Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Chris- 
tianity is a life. It is a charming idea, and 
we delight to recur to it. Nor do we know a 
better antidote to the dead formalism that 
usurps the sacred name of Christianity than 
this. It is a life — but it is a restored life; 
and this brings before us a peculiarity, a diffi- 
culty, which has not before this crossed our 
path. That God could, by a mere act of poiver, 
restore life to a soul spiritually dead — as he 
did at first impart life to man — can not be 
doubted. But could he do so in consistency 
with his other perfections? The communica- 
tion of life is one thing, the restoration of 
forfeited life another. There were hinderances 
in the way of the second — there were none 
in the way of the first. The theistic element 
can not meet this problem and solve it. The 
evangelic element alone can do this — Jesus 
Christ, whom thou hast sent. This meets the 
difficulty. Eternal life is obtained, and flows 
to us through a new channel. "This is the 
record, that God hath given to us eternal life ; 
and this life is in his Son." 1 John v, 11. 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 37 

This life is in his Son. The record tells me 
there is life to be had; it tells me, too, where 
it is; it points me to Christ; it says to me, 
" Behold the only source and fountain of life 
for sinners!" The record tells me this, and 
then it leaves me. And what next? I must 
now deal personally with this living and life- 
giving Savior. " We know that the Son of 
God is come, and hath given us an understand- 
ing, that we may know him that is true; and 
we are in him that is true, even in his Son 
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal 
life." 1 John v, 20. Mark here the various 
steps in this quickening of the soul. The Son 
of God has come : this is the foundation of the 
whole. He has come, and has procured "eter- 
nal life" for all that "know him." Next, he 
gives the understanding by which I can know 
him. Then, as the result of that knowledge, I 
am united to him, and become part of his mys- 
tical body, and live in him. " The life that I 
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the 
Son of God." 

It is, beyond doubt, this element — the Christ 
element — that constitutes the one grand pecu- 
liarity of Christianity — from which, indeed, it 
takes its very name. Leave out this, and you 



38 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rob it of all power and vitality; it becomes 
weak as any other system. It is shorn of its 
strength. To this element evangelism gives 
full prominence — not keeping it in the back- 
ground — not bringing it forward stealthily and 
timidly, but boldly and broadly. Here lies the 
mighty power of evangelism for awakening and 
maintaining spiritual life in all periods of the 
Church. It honors Christ by setting him forth 
in the very forefront of its teachings ; and he 
bears testimony to it, by accompanying it with 
the demonstration of his own Spirit. Here, 
too, lies the hold which evangelism has of the 
affections and the support of all real Christians, 
of whatever name. It is the common bond of 
union — the common center of attraction — the 
common nourishment of their souls. And 
why ? Because its one grand, inspiring theme 
is Christ. He is all in all. His deity — his 
atonement — his grace — his glory — this is the 
pervading spirit of it. Christ ! Ah ! there is 
a power in that name to touch all hearts ; to 
warm, and delight, and revive the souls of all 
who have been "born from above." It is this 
element that imparts life to the ministrations 
of the pulpit — life to the services of the sanc- 
tuary — life to those schemes of Christian enter- 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 39 

prise and philanthropy by -which our age is dis- 
tinguished — life, in short, to the individual soul, 
and to the Church at large. 

An exposition of the whole doctrine of eter- 
nal life has not been attempted here. Only 
those aspects of it have been set forth which 
seem to arise most naturally out of the passage, 
and are calculated to meet certain errors. This 
has imparted to the subject somewhat of a psy- 
chological character. It will easily be seen, 
however, that the strictly objective elements 
which belong to it are not only not denied, but 
are taken for granted as underlying the whole 
structure. There is one topic, however, on 
which more might have been said — the dura- 
tion, namely, of the life of which Christianity 
is the channel. As to the real meaning of the 
word " eternal," no doubt can possibly exist in 
any simple mind. All that has lately been 
written upon it, with the view of qualifying it 
and explaining it away, is pure trifling! That 
the life is eternal, in the ordinary sense of the 
term, is plain enough; but the reason of its 
being eternal is a deep and momentous ques- 
tion. Why is this life eternal? Not because 
it is life. There is nothing in life of any kind, 
simply as life, to insure its perpetuity. Nor is 



40 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

there any thing in knowledge, simply as knowl- 
edge, to constitute this life eternal. So long, 
indeed, as the knowledge exists, there is, of 
course, life ; but this is nothing better than a 
mere truism. It is here that a purely-sub- 
jective or psychological theory of life fails: 
it makes no provision for the continuance of 
this life heyond the present moment. Eter- 
nity must, therefore, be something superadded 
to life of mere goodness. " Eternal life/' 
says Scripture, "is the gift of God;" and, in 
the verse immediately preceding the text, we 
read, " Thou hast given him power over all 
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many 
as thou hast given him." That eternal life 
which was set before Adam as a reward, is set 
before us as a gift. It becomes a real, present, 
personal possession. The believer can now say, 
Eternal life is mine ; that is, the life I now 
have shall never fail me ; it is secured by my 
union with Christ, and as the reward of his 
obedience. This element of eternity is a most 
precious attribute attached to the spiritual life, 
and is felt to be so by the Christian. He feels 
that he has even now entered on the possession 
of an inheritance lasting as the Divine existence. 
And now, in conclusion, let me ask, Is not 



CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. 41 

Christianity a truly-grand system ? Let lis try 
to entertain right views of it. Let us enlarge 
our minds to grasp it, and take it all in. Let 
us study breadth. Let us beware of investing 
a theme like this with the narrowness of our 
own hearts, and the littleness of our own con- 
ceptions. Christianity has nothing to fear if 
we will only do it justice — if we will only ex- 
hibit it in its true character — if we will only 
give it free scope and development. It is a 
grievous thing that this heaven-born religion 
should suffer, in passing through our hands, by 
being compelled to assume some dwarfish shape, 
in which its divine origin can scarcely be dis- 
cerned. The age demands another Christianity 
than this. It is an earnest age, and demands 
an earnest Christianity — even a Christianity 
that has life and power in it — -a vital, dynam- 
ical Christianity, that will take its place among 
the various forces that are at play in society, 
and will influence and subordinate them all. 
The age is an intellectual one, and demands a 
Christianity that will furnish food for the mind, 
and will not only not be beneath, but on a level 
with, and even above the current literature and 
science of the day — a Christianity that will 
satisfy the intellect with its truths, and touch 



42 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the heart with its love, and sway the will with 
its persuasiveness, and gratify the taste with its 
beauties, and fill the imagination with its sub- 
limities — a Christianity that will enlist the 
whole nature of man on its side, and command 
its willing and devoted homage — a Christianity 
so broad and catholic, and yet so pure and 
Scriptural, as will unite the scattered mem- 
bers of Christ's mystical body— a Christianity 
that, investing men's minds and hearts with its 
own greatness, will raise them above paltry ends 
and aims, and paltry disputes and distinctions — 
a Christianity which, drawn fresh from the 
fountain-head, the springs of life that never die, 
shall appear in all the vigor of immortal youth, 
with unabated strength, undimmed eye, and un- 
wrinklecl brow — a Christianity which, bearing 
the full impress of its Author's image, shall 
carry its own credentials along with it — a 
Christianity which, armed with weapons of 
ethereal temper, clothed with the panoply of 
heaven, charged with all the elements of truth 
and righteousness, of beauty and grandeur, of 
love and of power, full of God and full of 
Christ, shall be adored by all who love it, and 
be dreaded by those who love it not. 

And we need no new or improved Chris- 



CHKISTIANITY A LIFE. 43 

tianity. It is all here — in the Bible — this 
blessed book — God's own word — the light of 
the world — the Church's pillar of fire — the 
healer of the nations — the voice of the Eter- 
nal — the purchase of Christ's blood — the sword 
of the Spirit — the instrument of regeneration — 
the food of the renewed soul — the " more sure 
word of prophecy, whereunto we do well to 
take heed, till the clay dawn, and the day-star 
arise" — -till He come who is the eternal, incar- 
nate, substantial word of God; and then fare- 
well, blessed book ! we need thy light no more. 
Meanwhile, let it circulate on the wings of 
every wind that blows! Spread, spread it 
over the wide earth ! Sow, with no stinted 
hand, this precious seed! " Broadcast it o'er 
the land !" Let it find its way into every peas- 
ant's hut and every royal palace, into every hall 
of science and every court of legislation ! Let 
this lower sun, emblem of the Sun of righteous- 
ness, rise on every nation with healing under its 
wings! Let China's teeming millions read its 
sacred page ! Let India's dark idolaters learn 
from it the knowledge of the true God; and 
the deluded followers of the Antichrist of the 
east find that there is another Prophet sent 
from heaven than their own ! Let it find access 



44 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

into the darkest seats of the Papacy, and over- 
throw the Antichrist of the west ! Angel of 
Mercy ! swift be thy flight over earth and sea — 
irresistible thy progress — universal thy tri- 
umph ! 



CHEISTIANITY A WORK. 45 



II. 

CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 

" I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished the 
work which thou gavest me to do." John xvii, 4. 
Read in connection John iv, 34 ; v, 17 ; ix, 4. 

Christianity is a life! this was our first 
theme. Christianity is a work ! this is our sec- 
ond theme. It follows naturally and necessa- 
rily from the former; for if Christianity be a 
vital system, it must also be a dynamical sys- 
tem ; if it be a life, it must also be a work — a 
force — an energy. Life is something essen- 
tially active ; at any rate, its tendencies are 
ever toward activity. If life and its exercises 
can be at all distinguished, it is only as far as 
the first presupposes a principle of action, and 
the latter imply a sphere of action. Given the 
life, or principle of action, to find a sphere for 
that principle, and to stir it up, and direct and 
control it — this is the great problem of prac- 
tical ethics. There are two great problems in 



46 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

fact, in morals, and the Gospel solves both. 
There is, first, the problem of life itself — how it 
shall be awakened and maintained in the soul. 
We have already called attention to the solution 
of this problem. Then there is the problem of 
life in action — how it shall be drawn forth, and 
made to pass from principle to practice, and 
thus turned to the best account both for its own 
sake and that of Him who has imparted it: for 
its own sake, for life thrives best — it is then in 
its most normal, healthy condition — when it is 
acting according to its own impulsive, energetic 
nature ; and for the sake of Sim who has im- 
parted it, for it is thus he is glorified, by its 
furthering the ends, the high ends for which it 
was conferred. It is to the solution of this 
problem that we now propose to address our- 
selves. And first of all, with the view of prov- 
ing how thoroughly Christianity is a work, we 
would refer to the exhibition of it in the life of 
its great Author — Christ himself 

Now, it is very interesting to notice here — as 
throwing light upon this point — the connection 
between the passage before us and the previous 
verse. It is declared to be life eternal to know 
Jesus Christ; that is, through the knowledge 
of him we become partakers of his life. And 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 47 

what was this life of his? Was it that of 
the mystic — a dreamy, contemplative, apathetic 
life ? W as it an inner life merely— a life spent 
in seclusion, in isolation, in self-tormenting, 
self-scrutinizing exercises? Or was it a life of 
luxury and inglorious ease ? Mark what fol- 
lows, and mark it well, for it is very remarka- 
ble: "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have 
finished the work which thou gavest me to do." 
Ah ! this was the life of Jesus Christ, whom the 
true God sent into this world of ours. It was 
an active, devoted, self-sacrificing life he led. 
See how closely the vital and the dynamical— 
the life and the work were united in him— they 
were all one. To know Christ aright, is to 
know him in this character, as the glorifier of 
God — the Father's servant and workman. And 
the life that comes through such a knowledge 
must needs be a life like his ; a life which con- 
secrates all its energies and all its opportunities 
to the Divine glory; a busy, working life, at 
the close of which his language, too, may be 
taken up, though in an immeasurably-infcrioi 
degree — " I have glorified thee on the earth, I 
have finished the work which thou gavest me 
to do." These are indeed remarkable words. 
There is a depth and fullness of meaning in 



48 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

them which reveals itself only after a very- 
close examination of them. Every clause, al- 
most every word is emphatic. I have glorified 
thee. What is chiefly noticeable here, at least 
in connection with the topic in hand, is the 
grand aim and end OF the Savior's work — 
the glory of his heavenly Father. It was not 
his own glory, for that would have been selfish- 
ness ; nor was it merely the good of others, for 
that would have been nothing better or higher 
than philanthropy ; but it was the Divine glory ! 
The object of his mission into the world was to 
vindicate and illustrate the glory of the Divine 
character and government, which had been dis- 
honored by man. This he did by his own vol- 
untary subjection to the Father — by his obedi- 
ence, as we say, and his death. He glorified 
his justice, for its claims were fully met by him 
and satisfied. He glorified his truth, for its 
threatening^ were realized in him to the letter. 
He glorified his mercy, for it found free scope 
through his interposition, and could now reach 
the guiltiest of the guilty. He glorified, in a 
word, His whole character. All the value 
of Christ's work, whether viewed as an atone- 
ment, or as an example, lay here — in its being 
done with a view to the Divine glory. We do 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 49 

not see into the depths of this "mystery of 
godliness, God manifest in the flesh," if we 
overlook this. We shall not he able to sym- 
pathize with the mission of the Son of God 
into our world unless we lay hold on this great 
fundamental principle, that the Divine glory 
underlies, originates, pervades, and terminates 
the whole of the Divine procedure, and that 
the rule "whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
of God," is the grand law of the moral uni- 
verse, the violation of which spreads ruin and 
disorder wherever that violation has occurred. 
It was to illustrate and enforce this principle— 
it was to write anew this law in hearts from 
which it had been erased — it was to destroy 
the pride and selfishness of man — it was to 
re-enthrone God in the soul, and make his 
glory the supreme and ruling motive in every 
breast — it was for this purpose Jesus lived and 
died. This is redemption — this is salvation in 
the full sense of these glorious words. And it 
is a great achievement wherever it has been 
accomplished; it is a mighty and most blessed 
change in him who is the subject of it. To 
do all — to do any thing to the glory of God! 
Ah ! that is what fallen humanity can not rise 
to; it can not even credit the possibility of it. 



5(j ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

It is easy to work — to labor much a] . .-ifice 

much for inferior ends: but to work for Gt)d — - 
to 1 it of self — to t .1 up in 

the Divine glory! this is another matter alto- 
gether. And here lies the value of the life of 
Christ — that it shows that this can he d 
and has been done, and in our nature, too; 
and that it shows, also, haw it can be done, 
in our own streng I union 

i Him in whom d all 

its fullness. It is a grand thing tl work 

for God — thus to live for the Divine glorr ! ! 
believe it. we shall never be happy till tbi 
the aim and end of all we do: "I have glpri 
thee'" — 

On the earth, he adds. What is noticeable 
here is the SPHERE of the ~ work — this 

world. This is ! incidental or r 

expression. There is a deep truth 
tained in it. It was on this earth the Divine 
glory was 3et at naught, and trampled under 

he Divine g] 

received its brightest manifestation and its 

highest vindication. Who does not see a mar- 

velo" m in this? The enemy is met and 

hed in Iris own chosen field. The great 

e ends from his own 



CHRISTIANITY A "WORK. 51 

bright abode into the arena of this lower world, 
and there, or rather here, in the view of God, 
and angels, and devils, and men, a He lays his 
glory by," he " takes upon hirn the form of a 
servant, and becomes obedient unto death, even 
the death of the cross," that the dishonor done 
to his Father might be wiped away. And now 
he can say, I have glorified Thee on the earth, 
this rebellious, apostate province of thy vast 
empire, let me back again to the glory I had 
with thee before I left thy bosom. Who does 
not see, we repeat, a marvelous wisdom in the 
choice of this earth as the sphere of the 
Savior's God-glorifying work? You can at 
least imagine other spheres, but not one so 
suitable as this. And the same wisdom is man- 
ifest in continuing this earth as the sphere of 
labor for his disciples. Why are they not 
removed, immediately after conversion, to a 
brighter and better world on which their hearts . 
are placed, but because here, on the earth, they 
have opportunities for glorifying their heavenly 
Father, such as even heaven itself could not 
afford? No sphere like this world — this dark, 
disordered, wretched world — for witnessing, at 
any hazard, for God's supremacy; for glorify- 
ing him by doing and suffering; for wiping 



52 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

away tears and healing broken hearts ; for al- 
leviating the afflictions of sorrowing humanity; 
for saving souls from destruction, and winning 
them over to the service of Jehovah. Yes; 
it is a noble field of usefulness we are permitted 
to occupy; and though there are times when 
we grow weary of it, and would fain be away 
from it altogether, yet, in our calmer moments, 
we feel that this is wrong, and that in reality 
we are losing sight of the grand end of our 
being, and are preferring our own ease to the 
glory of God. Each one has his own special 
sphere in this world — his own divinely-allotted 
sphere, within which it is his duty to work, and 
to glorify God hj this his work. Whatever that 
special sphere be, let us occupy it well. Let 
us not shrink from its difficulties and duties. 
Let us come forth boldly on the side of God, 
and confront the enemies of the Gospel, and 
stem the torrent of iniquity, and uphold the 
cause of righteousness, and be "valiant for the 
truth upon the earth." Look abroad upon the 
face of the world; how it still "lieth in the 
wicked one!" how the earth still groans under 
an ever-accumulating load of sin and misery! 
And yet this world is not the devil's, but God's. 
" The earth is the Lord's," and ho will yet make 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 53 

good his claim to it. From the moment the 
Savior could say, I have glorified thee upon the 
earth, the knell of the reign of the usurping 
prince of this world was rung. Let us not, 
therefore, abandon this earth as utterly cursed 
and cast off by God. Let us not give over the 
world as lost. It is a blood-bought world, and 
He who ransomed it at so dear a price will one 
day wear it as the most radiant gem in his 
many-jeweled diadem. The earth that was be- 
dewed with the. Savior's tears and sweat— -the 
earth that was trodden by his hallowed feet — 
the earth that drank his life-blood, shall yet 
throw off the curse that has so long blighted 
it, and shine forth with the Divine glory. Ah ! 
there is a prophetic import wrapped up in that 
expression, on the earth. It is instinct with a 
bright and glorious future ; it is pregnant with 
hope and joy for our world ; it is anticipatory 
of the deliverance of nature from the bondage 
of corruption under which it has groaned and 
travailed in pain till now. "I have glorified 
thee on the earth!" 

I have finished the work, continues he. 
What is noticeable here is the perfection of 
the Savior's work. Mark this word " finished;" 
it intimates not merely that the work was done, 



54 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

but that it was well done, that It was in every 
respect a perfect work; perfect in respect of 
the nature of it, as something altogether pe- 
culiar in itself, and to be distinguished from 
every other work as to the ends it would ac- 
complish; perfect in respect of the spirit of 
it, as aiming at the glory of God; and perfect 
in respect of the amount of it, as coining fully 
up to what was prescribed. It was such a 
work, so finished, so perfect, that he could 
challenge Divine approbation upon it, and claim 
the stipulated reward. And it was such a 
work that the Father did declare his acceptance 
of it, and did crown it with the promised rec- 
ompense. And notice — for this is a very in- 
teresting feature of this work — within how 
comparatively brief a period it was accom- 
plished; within how comparatively humble a 
sphere of life; and with how comparatively 
little obtrusiveness and outward show. Why 
was a work like his, so vast in itself, and so mo- 
mentous in its consequences, at once so speed- 
ily and so perfectly performed? It was be- 
cause he entered into it with his whole heart ; 
because he threw himself soul and body into it; 
because he embarked all his energies in it; 
because there was no other work to divide his 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 55 

affection and weaken his interest. "My meat 
is to do the will of him that sent me." He 
did not perform his assigned work in a cold, 
heartless, perfunctory manner. His work was 
his delight, his refreshment, his food, his very 
life. This is the explanation of his finishing 
his work so thoroughly and so promptly, and 
it lets us into the secret of doing much for 
God. Why is so little work done by us, and 
that little so ill done, so imperfect in every 
respect? We complain of want of time, want 
of opportunity, want of strength. It is an 
utter delusion, and our own hearts condemn us. 
It is zeal that is lacking, zeal for the glory 
of God, the honor of Christ, the salvation of 
souls. We shall never be able to do great 
things for God, unless we embark in his service 
with an ardor that the world will stigmatize 
as enthusiasm or something worse. It is truly 
amazing what one will do, how much work he 
will accomplish, and that, too, within the com- 
pass of a brief earthly existence, who is in- 
spired with the zeal of the Lord's servant, and 
spends and is spent in his service. And have 
we not here the explanation of what has been 
regarded as one of the deepest and darkest 
mysteries of Providence, and has been bewailed 



56 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

as one of the heaviest calamities that can befall 
the Church and the world, the early — too early, 
we call it — removal of zealous laborers from the 
sphere of their earthly labors. They were 
more devoted and diligent than others ; their 
work was, therefore, all the sooner done, and 
they were the earlier called to their reward. 
Their work was finished; if it had not been 
finished they would not have been removed. 
Their work was finished, and they had no more 
to do. Their work was finished, for they were 
no idlers ; their work was no child's play ; they 
worked hard, they did not spare themselves, 
and they got through it all the sooner, and all 
the better. Their work was finished, and a 
goodly structure it was when the top stone was 
laid upon it — a noble specimen of their industry 
and perseverance — an enduring monument in 
which their memory is preserved and kept 
sweet, when the hands that raised it are mold- 
ering in the dust ! Those who gaze upon it are 
struck with wonder and admiration. So much 
work accomplished within a few short years by 
one man ! What might not be done by all of 
us, were we as single-minded, as large-hearted, 
as high-souled, as self-denying, as indefatigable 
as he ! We are reminded of our own work 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 57 

which is accumulating upon our hands, of our 
opportunities of usefulness which are irrecover- 
ably gone, of our time, and strength, and tal- 
ents, -which have been wasted in trifles, or have 
been allowed to lie by unemployed and to gather 
rust. It grieves and humbles us beyond meas- 
ure to think how deceitfully, how wretchedly we 
have done the Lord's work — a work that de- 
manded our best energies — a work that claimed 
the precedence of every other— a work that 
would have had such glorious results ! On the 
contrary, there is an unspeakable satisfaction in 
feeling that one has done what he could, that 
at least he has not come willfully and habitually 
short of any duty ? that the work has not been 
utterly marred in his hands. And especially 
when the close of life is at hand, and the Judge 
is at the door — and 0, call not this legalism, it 
is not so ! — it will contribute greatly to brighten 
our hope of heaven, to feel that we have not 
lived for ourselves, but for God, and can thus 
venture to use, to some extent, the Savior's own 
words, in the view of his departure out of this 
world, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I 
have finished the work" — 

"Which thou gavest me to dfo," he finally 
adds. What is chiefly noticeable here is the 



58 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

SUBMissiVENESS of the Savior's work. It was 
a prescribed work — a work given him to do. 
He did not mark it out for himself; he did not 
enter on it unbidden ; he waited for a call, and 
when it came he joyfully responded to it, " Lo, 
I come! I delight to do thy will, my God." 
Such a work as his, indeed, could not have been 
chosen for its own sake. There was much, 
both in the sphere and in the work itself, that 
would have led him to shrink from it. But 
higher considerations reconciled him to it. 
Subjection to the authority of Him who pre- 
scribed it, regard for his glory, love for the 
objects of the Divine compassion — these en- 
cleared to him the work, both of doing and 
suffering, laid upon him. It was, we repeat, 
a prescribed work, and this feeling, never once 
lost sight of, kept him steadfast in the path of 
duty. "I must work the works of him that 
sent me while it is called day." "The cup 
which my heavenly Father has given me, shall 
I not drink it?" There was a beautiful sub- 
mission in all this which immeasurably en- 
hanced the value of the work itself, and, in 
fact, imparted to it its chief value in the sight 
of God. For he prescribes work of any kind, 
not so much because it is needful to him as 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 59 

because it is a test of obedience on the part of 
him to whom it is prescribed. There is a deep 
truth here, and it enters so essentially into the 
whole theory of working, that we must en- 
deavor to open it up and apply it. It is 
essential to all acceptable obedience that it be 
not self-devised, and self-originated, but that it 
be in conformity with the will of God. It is 
not every kind of work that will please him, 
either as to the matter or manner of it, either 
as to its substance or its spirit. Will-work, 
like will-worship, is his dislike. He will say 
of it, Who hath required this at your hand? 
And it is just as true now as it was then, in the 
case of the Lord's servant by way of eminence, 
that God presents to his servants both the 
sphere of their labor, and their very labor 
itself. The work which thou gavest me to do. 
Ah ! here lies our authority to work for God ; 
he has assigned us our task, if we may call 
that a task which is a pleasure, a privilege ; 
and we need no other warrant than the plain 
intimation of his own providence, pointing out 
to us some path of duty, shutting us up to it, 
in fact, so that we can not avoid seeing it, and 
can not escape from it without great stupidity 
or great guilt. Here lies our encouragement to 



60 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

work for God; lie lias sent the "work, and he 
will send the strength to perform it, and in due 
time will crown it with success, for it is his own 
work, and he will bless it. Here lies our obli- 
gation to work for God; he has placed us in 
our present sphere of duty, and we dare not 
quit it. It may be one of great responsibility, 
great difficulty, great danger, and we may 
fancy that we are quite unfit for it, and may 
sigh for another sphere, but it is the very 
sphere God has chosen for us. We did not 
force ourselves into it, we found ourselves in it 
by an overruling hand. He chose it for us, 
who chooses every thing for his people, their 
duties, their trials, their position, their relation- 
ships ; and God having thus given us a work to 
do, we will, by God's grace, do it. No fear 
of man, no love of ease, no allurements of 
sense, shall turn us aside from it. ! it im- 
parts a heroism, a dignity, a moral sublimity 
to one's conduct, be his sphere what it may, 
however exalted, however humble, when he 
feels that he is acting his part on the theater 
of life as one that has a mission from heaven, 
one that has a work to do, and that not man's 
work, which is ever a poor, contemptible, thank- 
less work ; but God's work, which is ever a 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. til 

glorious, a delightful work. We have all this 
high calling, this heavenly mission, this divine 
work, if we but knew it. Yes, if we but knew 
it ; but how few of us do know this — are capa- 
ble of rising to the elevation of such a senti- 
ment! Only hear what Christ says on this 
point: " As thou hast sent me into the world, 
even so have I also sent them into the world." 
Amazing truth! our mission, oar work, the 
same substantially, though, of course, with 
much important difference, as will at once oc- 
cur to the minds of those who have correct 
conceptions of his atoning and saving charac- 
ter, yet the same substantially as to its ultimate 
ends and issues as his — the glorifying of the 
Father ! It is an elevating, inspiring thought 
this. It lifts the mind immeasurably above the 
meaner aims and ends of the world. It invests 
life with an importance and a dignity it would 
not otherwise possess. Without this, life is but 
a poor thing — a passing vapor — a bubble upon 
the stream of time. But here is an object 
worth living for. The glory of God! The 
soul kindles at that thought; it is the awaken- 
ing of a new existence — the bursting forth of 
new energies — the entrance upon a new arena, 
where a great conflict is going on, that arrests 



62 Or CHRISTIANITY. 

the 

>w is life! We li life of 

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How Ci 

tlie earth — ir — the 

. 
hovah, the assertors of fa 
of his truth, I 
m! 
as the life of Chri 
up in tl : "I L 

I the 
ich thou Such • 

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But with the r provin 

e would 

..vine in:' 

i of du 

i in 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 68 

connection with which the Spirit of God is be- 
stowed to quicken and energize the spiritually- 
dead soul, we see how truly it may be entitled a 
work. It is a great mistake to suppose that 
the sinner is passive throughout the whole work 
of his moral renovation. There is no power, it 
is true, in the soul to turn to God till supernat- 
ural grace is communicated. But, then, no 
sooner is this the case, than the soul awakens 
from the deep sleep of nature, and begins to 
put forth after salvation efforts unknown before. 
The soul thus quickened and energized by the 
Holy Spirit, is active, essentially and power- 
fully active, in repentance, in faith, in prayer, 
in resisting temptation, in conflicting with in- 
dwelling sin, in receiving the truth, and in using 
all these means by which the soul's perfect reno- 
vation is achieved. So far, then, is the doctrine 
of divine influence from paralyzing the Chris- 
tian, that it is the source, and the only source, 
of all moral ability and inclination for what is 
truly good and spiritual. He works because 
God works in him and by him. He works out 
his salvation with fear, for it is God that work- 
eth in him both to will and to do. Deprive 
Christianity of this divine influence, and it be- 
comes weak as any other system; it is not, in 



64 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

any practical sense at least, either a life or a 
work. If, therefore, our Christianity has killed 
us asleep — if it has not stirred us up to lay 
hold on Christ, and to aim after conformity to 
the Divine image, it is a dead, formal, abstract 
Christianity, and not the spiritual Christianity 
of the Bible. It has come to us in word only, 
and not in power ; we have but the letter which 
killeth, and not the spirit which maketh alive. 

Or, secondly, do we view it as a system of 
motives , that is to say, a system in connection 
with which arguments and considerations are 
held forth, and are addressed to the heart and 
to the will, suited in their own nature to rouse 
to action, we see how truly it may be called a 
work. The love of God, the grace of the Ee- 
deemer, the hope of heaven — these are motives 
of the highest and most powerful character, and 
it is impossible to realize these, and not feel 
our whole soul won over to the Divine service. 
" The love of Christ constraineth us ; because 
we thus judge, that if one died for all, then 
were all dead ; and that he died for all, that 
they which live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, but unto him which died for them, 
and rose again." "Ye are not your own, but 
are bought with a price : therefore glorify God 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 65 

in your body and in your spirit, -which are 
God's." All this is in beautiful conformity 
with the constitution of the mind; and here 
lies the important difference between the law 
and the Gospel. Both demand work. But the 
first makes no provision for its demand being 
complied with. It is like the Egyptian task- 
makers of old, who required the Israelites to 
make bricks without straw. But the Gospel 
does what the law can not do — -imparts to us 
both strength and inclination for work — de- 
stroys the power of sin in our hearts, and 
enthrones God in its stead. 

" Talk they of morals ! O thou bleeding Love ! 
The grand morality is love of Thee." 

This sentiment is as Scriptural as it is beau- 
tiful, and as philosophical as it is Scriptural. 
Faith working by love is the grand principle 
of Gospel morality; faith realizing the love 
of God in our redemption, and this love en- 
kindling our love in return; and then finally 
this love constraining us, as by a sweet yet 
irresistible influence, to offer ourselves as living 
sacrifices upon the altar of the Redeemer. 
Christianity is thus a work because it touches all 
the springs of action in our varied nature, and 
when these are touched, the whole man is gained. 



66 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Or, thirdly, do we view it as a system of 
duties, that is to say, a system in connection 
with which there is room for human agency 
in furthering the Divine purposes regarding the 
world's salvation, we see how truly it may be 
called a work. It is very startling and mys- 
terious to find how much that cause for which 
the Son of God came into the world has been 
committed to the charge of us his professed 
followers. It could not have been otherwise, 
perhaps, without such a continued miraculous 
interposition as would have interfered with 
other and higher ends. But that it is so is 
a solemn and awful truth, and involves in it 
an amount of responsibility which, it is not 
too much to say, not one of us has yet fully 
realized. Is it the truth — the actual, sober 
truth — that if God is to be glorified on the 
wide theater of this world of ours; that if 
the Gospel is to triumph universally; that if 
Satan's usurped dominions is to be overthrown; 
that if the gross darkness that covers the earth 
is to be dissipated — all this must be done by 
Christians themselves? Is this true — and who 
can doubt it? — then say if Christianity be not a 
work. Say if it do not lay upon every one 
who professes it a moral obligation to spare 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 67 

no pains, no labor, no sacrifice, for the achieve- 
ment of this great work, the world's Chris- 
tianization. It is a mighty work, indeed — a 
work in comparison with which every other 
work dwindles into insignificance. And yet 
Christianity proposes to achieve this, and 
Christianity would achieve it, did we use it 
aright. But somehow or other we have come 
to think that Christianity can propagate itself, 
or at any rate that we individually have little 
or nothing to do with it. And yet there is 
plenty of work for all of us — for every one 
of us. And what — it is asked in all faithful- 
ness and seriousness — what are we doing for 
Christ? What are we doing to advance the 
.glory of God? What are we doing to pluck 
as brands from the burning the souls that are 
perishing on every side of us? 

We proclaim the great but much forgotten 
truth, Christianity is a work. Away with that 
selfish, sickly, sentimental Christianity which 
would confine us within the narrow circle of 
our individual wants, and hopes, and privileges ; 
which would lead us to sit down at our ease, 
and Cain-like ask, Am I my brother's keeper? 
which would willingly take salvation from God, 
but give him back no recompense in devotedness 



68 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and self-denial; which would suffer us to stand 
by with folded hands and leave the work to 
be clone by others. Away with such an apa- 
thetic Christianity, and let us have an earnest, 
practical, man-loving, God-glorifying Christian- 
ity. We have had enough, and more than 
enough, of speculation — of dispute — of divi- 
sion. Let us have work. Work is the life of 
the Church and the individual soul. Work 
is health, work is gladness, work is privilege, 
"work is worship." 

Every thing calls aloud for work. The ne- 
cessities of the Church call for it; for it is 
weak and languishing, and maintains with diffi- 
culty its own existence. The necessities of the 
world call for it; for some great crisis is at 
hand, and the Lord is about to work some 
strange work on the earth. The reviving zeal 
and activity of the enemies of the truth call 
for it; for Satan never was so busy as he is at 
this hour. 

The plain fact is, the time for inaction has 
gone by, and Christianity must arouse itself, 
and assume the aggressive, that it may not only 
hold its own, but gain the world as its prize. 

And this were for the good of Christians 
themselves. If any thing will heal the divisions 



CHRISTIANITY A WORK. 69 

of Christendom; if any thing will make the 
divided Church one; if any thing will bring 
down the benign influences of the Spirit of 
God ; if any thing will take the minds of men 
off trifles and turn them to the great essentials 
of religion, it is this — it is working in the field 
of the wide, wide world, it is doing more for 
Christ, it is laboring more assiduously to raise 
fallen humanity from guilt and ignorance to the 
knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ, 
whom he has sent. 

We repeat the question, What are you doing 
for God? Can it be that the past period of 
your existence has been spent in other work 
than His or has been dwindled away in strenu- 
ous idleness, without an aim, without an end 
worthy of an immortal being? Awake, awake 
out of sleep ; address yourselves to more noble 
employment. Begin henceforth to live for God. 
We can not recall the past. It is dead and 
gone; and 

" Let the dead past bury its dead." 

The past is in its grave with all its sins and 
sorrows, all its means and opportunities of use- 
fulness, all its duties and trials, all its anxieties 
and fears, all its wounded affections, its blighted 



70 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

hopes, its withered flowers. They are passed 
away, and no wish of ours can recall them. 
And as for the future, we dare not speculate 
upon that. Only our prayer would be, that 
it may be holier and happier than the past; 
that we may be more active and useful than 
before; and that our earthly existence being 
spent more for the Divine glory, may terminate 
in the Divine favor; that " whether we live, we 
nray live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we 
may die unto the Lord; whether, therefore, we 
live or die, we may be the Lord's." 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 71 



III. 

CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 

"And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own 
self with the glory which I had with thee before the world 
was." John xvii, 5. 

Christianity a life ! this is the foundation. 
Christianity a work! this is the building. 
Christianity a reward! this is the top-stone. 
First, the life; then the work; then the re- 
ward ; this is the proper order, and each nat- 
urally and necessarily suggests the other. The 
relation between them is very close, and at the 
same time very peculiar, for they are the same, 
and yet they are distinct. They are the same; 
for what is the work but the life in exercise, 
and what is the reward but the life and the 
work in advanced stages of development? 
And yet they are distinct; for the work will 
ever depend upon the amount of life, and the 
reward upon the amount of the work. 

What, then, is the relation between these last 



72 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

two, between the reward and the work? Or ? 
in other words, what room is there in Chris- 
tianity for the idea of recompense, or, as we 
say, the doctrine of rewards and punishments? 
This is a question that goes very deep into the 
heart of the evangelic system; nor would it 
be easy to name a subject that calls for more 
care and nicety in the handling of it than this. 
It is one of the difficulties of Scripture, and 
has proved, in one way or other, a stumbling- 
block to many; here they have been caught 
tripping. In fact, it is a grand theological 
crux, a sure test, or touch-stone of the sound- 
ness, or, at all events, the clearness of one's 
religious views, and reveals at once, to an acute 
observer, the school to which he belongs. 

We begin by remarking, then, that there 
are four classes who have imperfect views on 
the subject before us — the relation between the 
ivork and the reivard. 

First, there is w T hat may be termed the ex- 
treme subjective view. According to this the 
work and the reward are all one. Heaven and 
hell are mere states of mind. If thou art holy, 
heaven is in thine own heart. God is nigh 
thee, Christ is within thee; thou needest no 
other heaven. What more wouldst thou desire, 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 73 

or even conceive? If tliou art not holy, 
"thou art in a wrong state, hell is about thee, 
God would save thee out of that state." That 
there is much truth in this can not be doubted. 
It is such as naturally presents itself to persons 
of a refined and spiritualistic turn of mind; 
and we must be permitted to say that they have 
done some good service in giving prominence 
to what is so much overlooked. And yet it 
is only part of the truth after all. It is an 
over-refinement, an excess of simplification, an 
extreme of spiritualism, which will not bear 
a minute scrutiny in the light of Scripture. 
There is in it an affectation — we are con- 
strained to call it so — of something more pure 
and elevated than God's own word. 

Then, in direct antagonism to this, and in 
an opposite extreme, there is, secondly, what 
we may term the extreme objective vieiv. Ac- 
cording to this, the work and the reward are 
essentially different. Heaven and hell are 
mere places. Pleasure and pain are the two 
leading ideas of which these are symbols. 
Heaven is but another name for happiness, 
hell for suffering; they partake largely of a 
materialistic, or sensuous character. There is 
much, too much, of the physique in this view, 



74 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

which shocks the higher order of minds, but 
which lays hold of and fascinates prodigiously 
minds of an inferior order. 

Then, thirdly, there is the legal vie%v. Ac- 
cording to this, the reivard is placed above the 
work) the latter being tolerated only for the 
sake of the former. Heaven and hell are mere 
'payments, a quid pro quo, a certain amount of 
wages for a certain amount of work — hire, in 
short. It is a strictly-mercantile affair, a busi- 
ness transaction, a balancing of accounts, a 
weighing of actions, a question of merit or de- 
merit. Justice is the presiding deity, and gives 
sentence with unerring and impartial hand. 
According to this view, Christianity is little less 
than a system of rewards and punishments ; the 
Gospel is, at best, a mitigated law. 

And then, fourthly, there is an ultra-evan- 
gelical view, rare, indeed, but sometimes met 
with. According to this, the ivorh is set above 
the reward, the latter being, in fact, lost sight 
of altogether, the very word being suffered to 
drop out of use, or introduced, if introduced at 
all, with timidity, and with certain explanations 
and qualifications, as if reward did not mean 
reward, but something else. We protest against 
this most undue liberty with our Saxon tongue. 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 75 

It is an offense against philology as well as 
against theology. Those to whom we refer can 
not abide to hear Christianity spoken of in any 
sense as a system of rewards and punishments. 
They think the expression savors of legalism, 
and so no doubt it does in the lips of many who 
use it. They are jealous, and right it is they 
should be so, for the honor of free grace. 
Their heaven is a gift rather than a reward; 
not justice, but sovereign grace alone presides 
in the bestowment of it ; it is the purchase of 
Christ, and no mention must be made of works, 
they are totally, forever excluded. 

We have thus endeavored to classify the va- 
rious views which are held in reference to the 
relation between the work and the reward. Ex- 
ceptions may, no doubt, be taken, to our classi- 
fication, as to classifications of all kinds, on the 
ground of their including too much or too little. 
But, in the main, we expect it will be admitted 
to be correct. 

Now, let us see what Christianity — that is, 
Scriptural, catholic, evangelical Christianity, 
which embraces all truth and rejects all error, 
which is drawing to itself, and will finally ab- 
sorb, all that is true in the systems of men, and 
will cast away all that is false — let us see what 



76 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

a broad, full-orbed Christianity has to say on 
this subject, and how it rectifies, subordinates, 
and harmonizes the one-sided and partial views 
of men and of systems. 

Looking, then, to the first, the extreme sub- 
jective view, or identification theory, as we may 
call it, let us see how Christianity can accept 
and appropriate the measure of truth that is 
in it. 

They have hold of a great truth who tell us 
that the work is its own reward, that it pays 
its own wages, and is not thinking, for the time 
being, of any further recompense ; that there 
is in the work an immediate and inherent recom- 
pense or reward, inseparable from the very na- 
ture of the work itself, it being, in fact, the 
work under another aspect. The work, in 
short, carries the reward, or rather, to speak 
more exactly, a reward in its own bosom. It is 
a great truth this, nor do we know any truth 
that testifies more strongly to the benevolence 
of God, and speaks more touchingly to the 
heart of man, in favor of religion. Now, 
Christianity is a reward in this sense, because 
it alone imparts the inclination and the strength 
needed for the work, so that it becomes easy, 
natural, delightful. It is only in Christianity 



/ 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 77 

that the work and the reward are in any degree 
harmonized and bound up together. While I 
strive to obey the law in my natural state of 
guilt and alienation — while I work in my own 
strength, and from inferior motives, the work, 
so far from being a reward, is a punishment. I 
work in chains. I labor as a bond-slave. Not 
till I love God himself, not till I believe in the 
love of Christ, not till I am forgiven, not, in a 
word, till I am a Christian, a renewed and 
saved man, do I find the reward in the work 
itself, and experience the truth of that Scrip- 
ture, "Great peace have they that love thy 
law;" and of this other, "In the keeping of 
His commandments there is a great reward." 
It is then I love the work for the work's sake, 
and His sake whose work it is. Many ingredi- 
ents enter into my delight in the work, and go 
to constitute it a present recompense. 

First of all, viewing it subjectively, there is 
in it the gratification of my own nature, with 
all its moral, intellectual, and emotional capaci- 
ties. Is it a work of mercy? my benevolent 
feelings are furnished with a pure and rich re- 
past. Is it a work of toil? my active powers 
find congenial and healthy exercise. Is it a 
work of suffering ? my heroic energies are 



78 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

roused, and meet with a suitable field for dis- 
playing themselves. Is it a more purely-spir- 
itual work? my various graces of faith, hope, 
humility, are called into play, and are nourished 
and strengthened. It were easy to enlarge in 
this direction. The truth is, my nature is so 
constituted, that, in proportion as it is called 
forth into exercise, there is the glow of health 
and gladness in my soul. 

But this does not exhaust the reward that 
lies in the work itself; there is something 
higher and purer still. It were but a subtile 
species of' selfishness did I not rise above my 
own states of mind, did I not rise above the 
work to him whose authority prescribes it, 
whose love constrains it, whose glory termin- 
ates it. I am unworthy of the high honor of 
doing any thing for God ; he needs not my 
services, as I need his. Not only to work, but 
to feel that one is working for him — that he 
acknowledges the work — that he allows me in 
this way to show my gratitude to him, and to 
get near to him — for when are we nearer to 
God, and God to us, than when we are work- 
ing for him ? — ! this is reward so great, so 
high, so undeserved, that no words can ade- 
quately set it forth ! 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 79 

Thus, then, is Christianity a reward in this 
important sense, that it makes the work its 
own reward — that it transmutes duty into privi- 
lege, law into love, subjection into freedom — 
that it so harmonizes the will of man with the 
will of God — that it so captivates the heart to 
the obedience of Christ — that it so destroys the 
enmity of the carnal mind, and enthrones God 
in the affections — that it so alters the relation 
between sinful, rebellious man and his divine 
Lawgiver, by bringing the two again into a 
friendly relation, that there is no longer any 
conflict with Jehovah, any desire to escape from 
his control. It is Christianity, the Gospel, the 
atonement realized by faith, that effects this 
marvelous change in our moral condition — noth- 
ing else will. And this lets us into the very 
heart and center of this most holy and blessed 
religion of ours. This reveals to us, more per- 
haps than any thing else, its true character as 
a system of grace and reconciliation — a system 
that brings immediate peace to the mind, and 
is even now an earnest of heaven — a system 
that does not reserve all its happiness for the 
future, but puts you in possession of present 
peace, present salvation, present fellowship with 
God! 



80 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Christianity a reward — an immediate, inward, 
conscious reward ! This is a great and glorious 
truth. Let us not be satisfied unless we know 
it in our own experience. 

Looking next to the second, or extreme ob- 
jective view, let us see what there is here that 
Christianity can recognize as true. 

They are right who tell us that there is a 
reward distinct from the work, and following 
after it — who speak of a heaven that has a local 
habitation as well as a name — who point to a 
judgment to come, and a trial by works, and a 
heaven following thereupon, and a recompense 
of glory, honor, and immortality, of fullness of 
joy, and pleasures for evermore at God's right 
hand. All this is distinct from the work, and 
in addition to it. It will not do to explain ail 
this away into mere subjective blessings and 
mental states. It is an utter confusion of ideas 
to identify things that are so far at least differ- 
ent — how far we may see by and by. It 
argues a thorough want of analytic power to 
confound what is immediate and inherent with 
what is subsequent and resultant. It is all very 
well to talk of the heaven within, but we must 
keep hold also of the heaven without. Spirit- 
ualism is a very fine thing, no doubt. We have 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 81 

too little of it in our religion generally ; would 
we had more ! But we are not purely-spiritual 
and ethereal beings, and we can not afford to 
dispense with all that is external and objective 
now or hereafter. The heaven of the extreme 
subjective view is of too shadowy and impalpa- 
ble a character to satisfy the intellect, or enkin- 
i die the imagination, or fill the heart. We want 
a real, bona fide heaven— a heaven that has 
definiteness and substance in it. We can not 
love, we can not even conceive of a heaven 
which is enveloped in mystery, from which all 
our conceptions of time and space are excluded, 
and which has nothing in common with our 
present cosmical existence. . It is not thus 
Scripture speaks of it. True, we do not accept 
all its emblems in their most exact and literal 
meaning. But if there be any sense in Scrip- 
ture at all — if the Bible be not a book of rid- 
dles — there is a real, objective, local heaven, be 
it where it may. They speak of such a heaven 
with proud contempt — they are quite above it — 
they are a heaven to themselves, and need none 
other. It is a favorite opinion with them that 
their heaven is a grander thing than ours. 
And yet, after all, is there not a littleness, a 

narrowness, a selfishness about the doctrine of 

G 



82 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

every man his own heaven, which stands in 
marked and unfavorable contrast with the warm, 
social, home-felt, heart-felt delights of our Fa- 
ther's house, where we shall dwell forever in his 
presence, and serve him day and night in his 
temple ! Here is something on which the mind 
can rest in contemplating the future. ! it is 
unspeakable relief to pass from the shadowy 
realms of idealism, where there is no rest for 
the sole of one's foot, to the sober, solid, sub- 
stantial ground of God's revealed word and 
will. There is at first, and for a time, some- 
thing quite fascinating, elevating, intoxicating 
even, in those excursions into the regions of 
dream-land, where visions "fair and sweet, yet 
misty all," float before the bewildered eye. 
Yet, sooner or later, one grows weary of " wan- 
dering in this enchanted ground, with giddy 
brow and tottering feet," and is fain to get 
back again to the realms of truth and reality — 
a humbler and more mundane sphere, it may 
be, but one in which living forms of flesh and 
blood, such as we are, alone can breathe freely, 
and move and have our being. It is, in truth, 
a beautiful but baseless theory, which, setting 
itself, as it does, at variance with the deepest 
necessities and desires of our nature, as well as 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 83 

with the plainest statements of Scripture, can 
not long retain its hold of the mind. 

For it is beyond all reasonable question that 
Christianity deals in grand objective realities ; 
that it provides that there shall be not only a 
reward in the work, but a reward from the 
work. There is thus a twofold recompense pro- 
vided, a double reward — the one accompanying, 
the other following. The work draws after it 
a reward both in time and eternity ; in time, in 
the way of a fuller communication of grace to 
the soul; in eternity, in the way of a larger 
impartation of glory. But it is of prime im- 
portance to observe, that though the work and 
the reward are thus distinct, they are not dif- 
ferent. There is a connection between the two 
in point of suitableness. And this suitableness 
is twofold, as to the amount, or measure of the 
reward, and as to its kind, or nature. We see 
not, or at least very rarely, this suitableness in 
the dealings of man with man. The work and 
the wages are, for the most part, essentially 
different — bearing no relation to each other in 
any respect beyond conventional usage. It is 
but the money-value, as they call it, of the 
work that is looked to. But if my Ayork be a 
spiritual one, you can not adequately repay me 



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CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 85 

inferior one, that Christianity is a reward, car- 
rying the soul forward from one degree of glory 
to another; the work and the reward distinct, 
and yet substantially the same — the two acting 
and reacting on each other, and thus securing 
uninterrupted and unending progress. For this 
law of suitable connection will hold through 
eternity. Were the connection between the 
work and the reward arbitrary, as among men, 
it might be altered. But it is not so — it is a 
necessary one ; it arises out of the fitness of 
things ; it is in harmony at once with the right- 
eousness and the beneficence of the Divine char- 
acter. The more we glorify God, the more will 
he glorify us ; and how can he glorify us but 
just by raising us to a higher capacity of glori- 
fying himself; for here lies at once the honor 
and the happiness of the creature. It is a 
grand idea this ; let us cherish the thought of 
it, for there is a wonderful power in it to elevate 
and sanctify the mind. 

Looking next to the third, the legal view, let 
us see what verdict Christianity pronounces 
upon it. May there not be some truth lurking 
here which it may be worth while to discover 
and place in its true light ? 

Legalists profess great reverence for the law; 



86 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tliis is gc is to be hoped their protesta- 

tions are as sincere as they are loud and fre- 
quent. Be this as it may, we accept then' pro- 
fessions as made in good faith. They point to 
those passages of Scripture which speak of 
judgment according to works ; and v.. 
bly there are such passages — many such. This, 
too, is right. They make much of the justice 
of God, and maintain that when, as Judge of ail 
the earth, he determines the final and ever] 
ing destiny of every one, it is on strictly ethical 
principles ; that rewards and punishments, that 
heaven and hell, are dispensed on the ground of 
individual moral character and conduct, and on 
this alone. This, too, is a great and funda- 
mental truth, and not to be gainsayed. They 
assert that it is one of the deepest and most 
indestructible of the intuitions of our nature, 
that when we feel we have done right we are 
entitled to a recompense, to an acknowledg- 
ment at the hands of him to whom we have 
done it, and that when it is withheld we suffer 
wrong ; and we honestly confess we think they 
are right here too. 

All these seem to us portions of truth, and 
we should tremble to think of Christianity 
being found in antagonism with them. But it 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 87 

is not so, and they are no enlightened friends 
of it who would endeavor to set the one against 
the other. Christianity accepts of these great 
everlasting verities, but supplements them with 
other portions of truth, without which no hope 
could be held out for guilty man. Yes, guilty 
man ; for it is with such we have now to deal. 
You speak to me of the law ! But I have 
transgressed it, and feel I am under its penalty. 
You speak to me of the justice of God ! But 
I feel that it seals my condemnation. You 
speak to me of ethical principles, of moral 
character and conduct ! But, alas ! I am una- 
ble to do any thing acceptable in God's sight ; 
"in me there dwelleth no good thing." You 
speak to me of intuitions, and inward prompt- 
ings, and expectations ! But these intuitions, 
these inward feelings, are all in favor of a just 
and fearful retribution. Your legalism can not 
help me here. It is beautiful in theory, but it 
grievously fails in the application. Law! Justice ! 
Judgment ! Ah ! these are terrible words. You 
do but cruelly mock me, pouring gall and worm- 
wood into my wounds, when you mention them 
in mine ears. I see room for punishment under 
your system, but none at all for reward. This 
is a word that should form no part of your 



88 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

vocabulary, for it discloses the nakedness of the 
land, it betrays the weakness and deficiency of 
your theory. Reward ! how is it to be got at ? 
In vain you call in something you term the gen- 
eral mercy of God to help you out of your dif- 
ficulty. Mercy ! mere mercy may forgive, may 
remove a penalty, but how can it reward? I 
am guilty, how can I, a guilty man, be re- 
warded ? Solve that problem if you can; you 
can not — confess honestly you can not, and no 
longer profess more than you can accomplish. 
But what legalism can not do, evangelical Chris- 
tianity can. The law! Christ's righteousness 
has magnified it and made it honorable. Jus- 
tice ! God is now just, and the justifier of him 
that believeth in Jesus. Ethical principles! 
moral character ! Divine grace renews the soul. 
The Spirit of God dwelling in the believer is 
the spring of personal holiness, of all those 
good and righteous actions on which a holy 
being can look with complacency. Only mark 
how things apparently irreconcilable, which 
have puzzled so many, may be harmonized. 
The work itself is of grace, grace enabling me 
to perform it ; the reward is of very righteous- 
ness and truth following upon the intrinsic char- 
acter of the work. It is no make-believe, but 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 89 

really and veritably a reward. I am rewarded, 
not for what another has done for me, but for 
what I have done myself — done, no doubt, 
through the might and power of another ener- 
gizing me, but still not the less on that account 
done myself ; nay, rather the more, for never 
am I more myself, never more truly free, never 
more fully possessed of a true and free person- 
ality, than when I am inhabited by the Free 
Spirit of God. The reward is of grace, no 
doubt, for "by the grace of God I am what I 
am." But not the less does the judgment of 
Him who sits upon the great white throne on 
the great clay of assize, when all nations shall 
stand before him — not the less does it rest on 
strictly-ethical principles — not the less is it 
based on the ground of moral character as its 
real and proximate reason. Thus can we vindi- 
cate the ways of God to man. 

Looking finally to the fourth, or ultra-evan- 
gelical view, let us endeavor to mete to it the 
same even-handed justice we have done to the 
others. 

It can not, we think, be doubted that there is 
on the part of many holding evangelical senti- 
ments, a jealousy of even the very term reward 
Nor is this to be wondered at, or severely ccn- 



90 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sured. A fear lest the freeness and simplicity 
of the Gospel should be marred by the intro- 
duction of an element alien to its whole spirit, 
the element, namely, of merit ; a difficulty in 
perceiving how the doctrine of reward can be 
made to fit in with the other parts of the sts- 
tern ; a strong and natural recoil on the part of 
every humble Christian from aught approaching 
to a claim upon God; a deep conviction and 
realization of the great imperfection and unwor- 
thiness that attaches to his best and holiest 
actions ; to all which may be added, a reaction 
in the opposite direction from legalism, to which 
there is so vehement a tendency in the human 
heart — ail this will not only intelligibly account 
for, but will go far to redeem from blame the 
conduct of those to whom we refer. 

But there is nothing like exhibiting the whole 
truth, and there is much, very much, of this 
particular portion of truth in the Bible, far 
more than one is aware of till he begins to ex- 
amine into the subject. No good ever comes of 
concealment. Let us not shun to declare the 
whole counsel of God. Why should we be 
afraid to exhort to good works by the hope of a 
reward in heaven ? Is it lest the honor of free 
grace should be impaired? This betrays a want 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 91 

of confidence in the Gospel. Is not the honor 
of grace sufficiently guarded when it is man- 
ifested in making us meet for the inherit- 
ance of the saints in light, and in bestowing 
upon us a reward immeasurably above what our 
works, even on the most favorable construction 
of them, deserve — even an inheritance incor- 
ruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away! 
Is it lest men should be encouraged to act from 
an inferior, selfish motive ? But what if his con 
dition in this world of temptation, and the con- 
stitution of his nature, render every variety and 
every degree of motive needful! Or is it lest 
the Gospel should be misunderstood and per- 
verted by the world ? But what if it shall be 
the fact that not a few fine and earnest minds, 
on this very account, feel a want in our evan- 
gelism, inasmuch as it does not cover the whole 
territory of Scripture, nor satisfy the cravings 
of their own aw akened spirits ! This is a sore 
pity. For, after all, evangelical Christianity 
will alone satisfy the wants and desires of those 
whose souls have been, in any good measure, 
quickened into spiritual activity. It is the final 
goal, or resting-place, of all who have felt the 
wretchedness of sin, and the vanity of the world. 
Let us give them it in all its length and breadth. 



92 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Let us show thern that " there is something in it 
for every man, and for all in every man/' 
something to meet what is in each one's heart, 
and at once to satisfy and sanctify it. For 
Christianity is a system of marvelous adapta- 
tion to humanity; and at each new unfolding 
of it — each new development which the piety, 
or the genius of man, or the history of the 
Church and the world may bring forth to our 
view — we shall feel how utterly impossible it 
is that it should have any other author than 
Him who made and fashioned the human soul. 
Having thus gone over the various views on 
this subject — the relation between the work and 
the reward, and separating what is true from 
what is erroneous or imperfect — we attain to 
the whole truth. There is a reward in the 
work, and there is a reward from the work; 
and the connection is one of grace to the ex- 
elusion of all merit, inasmuch as grace at once 
produces the work, and enhances the reward; 
and yet the connection is one of righteousness 
m opposition to mere arbitrariness or fictitious- 
ness, inasmuch as there is a moral suitableness 
and congruity between the two, the reward 
being adapted to the character and worth of 
the work, and arising out of the truth and 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 93 

righteousness of the Divine character — accord- 
ing to these remarkable words, " God is NOT 
unrighteous to forget your work and labor of 
love." 

Viewing, then, Christianity as a system — -a 
system at once evangelical and ethical in its con- 
struction—we see how truly it is a reward. 

But now, in conclusion, and in further illus- 
tration of this point, let us view Christianity 
as embodied in the life and history of its own 
Author. 

No one can have read Scripture with or- 
dinary attention without being struck with the 
fact that the divine Savior, whose actions 
sprung from the purest motives, was not un- 
influenced by the hope of a reward. 

In the first place, it is manifest that he ex- 
perienced a reward in the work itself, so con- 
genial was it to his feelings as a God-glorifying 
work. "I delight to do thy will, my God. 
Also thy law is zvitliin my heart." 

But, secondly, it is no less manifest that there 
was set before him a reward following after 
the work and arising; out of it. "He shall 
see of the travail of his soul, and shall be 
satisfied." "The sufferings of Christ and the 
glory that should follow." " For the joy that 



94 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

was set before him, lie endured the cross, de- 
spising the shame, and is set down at the right 
hand of the throne of God." "Who, though 
he was in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God ; but made him- 
self of no reputation, and took upon him the 
form of a servant, and was made in the like- 
ness of men; and being found in fashion as 
a man, he humbled himself, and became obe- 
dient unto death, even the death of the cross. 
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, 
and given him a name which is above every 
name; that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth; and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 
And look now to this intercessory prayer. The 
whole of it, and indeed the whole of his in- 
tercession generally, as to its basis and efficacy, 
is built upon his having fulfilled his part of 
his covenant engagements. There is, indeed, 
no unbecoming boldness; there is nothing like 
a peremptory demand or challenge on his part. 
Still there is a calm consciousness of integrity; 
there is the dignity of one who feels he has 
net proved unworthy of the trust committed to 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 95 

him; there is undoubting confidence not more 
in the love than in the righteousness of his 
heavenly Father. "I have glorified thee on 
the earth : I have finished the work which thou 
gavest me to do. And now, Father, glorify 
thou me with thine own self with the glory 
which I had with thee before the world was.' 7 
Now — that is, in consequence of this — in 
reward for this- — I have glorified thee, now 
glorify thou me. There is reference here man- 
ifestly to a previous understanding between the 
two parties in the everlasting covenant ere 
time had being. It becomes us to speak of 
such mysteries with profound awe, and as much 
as possible in the language of Scripture, lest 
we should speak unadvisedly with our lips. 
But in the main, divines are right when they 
represent the work of redemption as gone about 
with all the formalities and securities of a cov- 
enant. There was a reward to be earned. 
Even the divine Redeemer, the God-man, was 
not, it seems, above this influence. And he 
here claims it — " Glorify thou me with thine 
own self with the glory which I had with thee 
before the world was." Mark here how the 
work and the reward, though spoken of as dis- 
tinct, are yet substantially the same — the work 



96 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

to show forth, the Divine glory on earth, the 
reward to behold and enjoy the Divine glory in 
heaven. 

Glory! It is a most profoundly-mysterious 
■word this. What is the precise amount of it? 
How shall we be able to fathom it ? The orig- 
inal Greek word — 5o|a — means opinion, fame, 
renown, and this is very much the meaning 
of it with us. But this is a very superficial 
and trivial sense. The Hebrew word — nuu — 
signifies weight, literally. We like this grand 
old Hebrew word. It lets us into the heart 
of the thing. It intimates that there is much 
more in it than is generally imagined. It 
raises us above those paltry conceptions, those 
low, earthly, mean ideas we associate with it. 
It carries the mind upward to the God of glory, 
in whom alone all true glory resides, and from 
whom alone all true glory flows. 

Glory ! It is truly a most weighty term this, 
bearing the burden, so to speak, of the Divine 
perfections — sustaining the honor of the Divine 
character! There is a deity wrapped up in 
that word glory ! It is indeed a most sublime 
and sacred word, and it seems an act of dese- 
cration to apply it to aught that is human or 
earthly, except so far as it is the faint reflec- 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 97 

tion of the uncreated source of moral excel- 
lence. 

Herein lies our true glory— our true blessed- 
ness — our true reward. All else is fleeting and 
fantastic. Give me not the doxa — the mere 
fame — the mere seeming — the mere display; 
such glory, if we must still call it so, is un- 
substantial as a shadow, short-lived as a dream. 
But give me as my reward — give me the 
cabod — the glory that has weight and sub- 
stance in it — that bears the image and super- 
scription of Deity, and that will be immortal 
as its source, even an eternal weight of glory — 
the glory that lies in the possession of the 
Divine image, the enjoyment of the Divine fa- 
vor, and the performance of the Divine will. 

These are comforting and elevating views, 
and truly we do feel that we need them. Tired 
of the service of sin and Satan, sick of the 
pomps and vanities of the world, dissatisfied 
with the imaginations of our own foolish hearts, 
and with the conceptions of our own ever- 
changing minds, we feel that we need some- 
thing holier and truer — something more satisfy- 
ing and more enduring. 

Where shall we find it? Ye philosophers, 

ye moralists, ye sentimentalists, tell me where ! 

7 



98 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

It is the recommendation of Christianity — a 
recommendation this, an argument this, it bears 
in its own breast — that it meets me in my 
forlorn and all but hopeless condition, and 
satisfies my every want and wish; satisfies, 
do I say? surely I ought rather to say trans- 
cends. 

I want work! I am born for activity, and 
I languish for employment for my head — my 
heart — my whole man. The world can not 
give me the work I desire. I feel it is not 
worthy of me, an immortal being, endowed 
with energies and desires that spurn the nar- 
row limits of time. Something within me whis- 
pers that I am spending "my money for that 
which is not bread, and my labor for that 
which satisfieth not." Now, Christianity, I 
find, gives me work — calls upon me to glorify 
God, and work out my own salvation, and 
labor for the temporal and spiritual good of 
others. Christ says to me, and to all, even 
at the eleventh hour, even after the flower 
and vigor of life are well nigh over, Go, work 
in my vineyard. 

I want a reward! My inmost soul pants 
for rest and recompense. I want work that 
will remunerate me — work that will engage my 



CHRISTIANITY A REWARD. 99 

affections, and keep my whole man in healthful 
play — work that will fill up my time, and leave 
no dreary intervals between — work that will 
administer present enjoyment, and leave no 
sting behind — work that will command my 
Maker's approbation, and draw forth the 
applauding sentence, Well done! — work that 
will raise me in my own eyes, and make me 
feel that I am of some use in God's world — 
work that will draw down upon me the bless- 
ings of the great and the good, and gain from 
them a return in affection and gratitude — work 
that will train and prepare me for taking a 
still higher place in the kingdom of heaven, 
in the service of Him who "maketh his angels 
spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." 
These, we maintain, are noble and generous 
sentiments — truly God-like aspirations. And 
Christianity does not frown upon them. Chris- 
tianity lays hold of them, sanctifies and directs 
them. Christianity gives both the will and 
the power to work, thus turning, with Midas- 
like touch, the iron into gold; and not only 
so, but opens up the bright vista of a glorious 
future, in which thrones and scepters, crowns 
and diadems, honors and pleasures, and other 
images of magnificence dazzle indistinctly before 



100 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the niind, and tell us "that eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into 
the heart of man to conceive, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that loye him." 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 101 



IV. 

CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 

(c Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth. 
As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also 
sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify 
myself, that they also might be sanctified through the 
truth." John xvii, 17-19. 

Christianity a life, a work, a reward ! 
These are three of the many aspects under 
which it may be viewed. They are suggestive 
of each other. There are many other views 
that may be taken of so large a subject — -so 
vast a theme, each of them presenting it in 
some new, beautiful, and interesting light, cal- 
culated to strike now one person, now another. 
Might we not look at it, for instance, on the 
side of beauty, and mark how it is fitted to ele- 
vate and refine the mind, and to satisfy the 
demands not only of our moral and intellect- 
ual, but of our emotional and assthetical nature. 
This we might term Qliristianity a culture. 
Passing now from its more tasteful, pleasing, 



102 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

poetical side, we might view it in its more stern, 
severe aspect, as a system of trial, of conflict, 
of preparation for the future. This we might 
term Christianity a discipline. Then, ceasing 
to contemplate it on any one side, under any 
single aspect, we might try at least to take a 
large and broad view of it as a system of love 
and unity, as the foundation of a new order of 
things, as the center of attraction in this world 
of discord, as the bond of union and commun- 
ion between us and God and all holy beings ; 
and this we might term Christianity a fellow- 
ship. 

Do you feel inclined to say, this is to trifle 
with so solemn, so urgent, so personal a matter 
as Christianity is? Do you feel as if we were 
using unwarrantable liberties with it — as if we 
were bringing it down to the level of other sub- 
jects, by thus introducing into it the ideas and 
the terms of the schools of taste, of science, 
and of literature? Do you say, Christianity 
can borrow no light, no splendor from those 
quarters, though it may lend them of its own ? 
Be it so. We have no hesitation in admitting, 
that to Christianity itself we owe that pure taste, 
that high morale, that acute perception, that pro- 
found wisdom, those lofty and spiritual aspira- 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 103 

tions, in the light of which we are able to dis- 
cern and appreciate its internal excellence, as a 
system containing so many elements of truth 
and beauty, and so admirably adapted to the 
needs of humanity. We are only giving it 
back its own; but we are giving it back with 
interest ; we are laying it upon its altar with 
gratitude ; we are hanging up in its temple the 
spoils we have gathered — the trophies we have 
won, not in our own might, but in the might of 
its inspiration; and it does appear to me that 
we can perform no more becoming and graceful 
duty than thus to view Christianity in its own 
reflected light, and to discern what deeper and 
richer treasures lie hidden in that sacred field 
than have yet been revealed to us. 

Christianity a culture ! What mean we by 
this? We mean that Christianity is the best 
instrument for cultivating and bringing to per- 
fection our whole nature — for raising it up 
from its degradation, and carrying it forward 
to hitherto untrodden hights of excellence. 

That our nature has gone sadly into disorder, 
somehow or other, is beyond dispute here, and 
that, under the influence of the perversity that 
has seized it, it makes most humiliating and 
melancholy displays of itself, is manifest to all; 



104 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and yet, despite of all this, human nature is a 
grand tiling, grand and imposing even in its 
ruins. You can easily believe it is not what it 
once was, or may be again. Viewed by itself, 
it is a great enigma. You ask, how came it 
into its present anomalous condition ? is it 
always to remain in it ? how can it be extri- 
cated from it ? These are questions you ask in 
vain of human nature itself. It sends back no 
distinct, no satisfactory response ; only a deep 
sigh, bespeaking utter helplessness and hope- 
lessness, is heard from the mysterious abyss ; or 
occasionally you may chance to hear some des- 
perate struggle to rise out of the depths, which 
only issues in failure, and is followed by a 
deeper despair and apathy than before. The 
history of unaided humanity is but the repeti- 
tion of such fruitless efforts. 

For of all things in the world, humanity, 
when left to itself, is the most helpless. It is a 
grievous error to labor, as some in our day are 
doing, to bring down Christianity to the level 
of humanity: we must strive to raise humanity 
to the level of Christianity. Christianity is not 
in humanity. In vain you will seek to find it 
in our nature — to develop it by any process 
whatever — to evolve it out of intuitions, and 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTT7EB. 105 

thus to give it an a priori, or necessary basis. 
The foundation is not broad enough to bear 
such a superstructure. The whole edifice speed- 
ily gives way. But while it is not true that 
Christianity is in humanity, the converse is true, 
that humanity is in Christianity. You will 
find it there in perfection — in all its lineaments, 
and in all its essential properties. It harmo- 
nizes with its institutions, it responds to its crav- 
ings, it supplies its wants, it rectifies its disor- 
ders. This is the right relation between these 
two. It is said, and said most truly, that 
they — humanity and Christianity — must admit 
of being harmonized ; that the two can not be 
in antagonism ; that the age is demanding their 
reconciliation. Be it so. But how? Ah! 
here comes out the main point of difference and 
dispute. Some would seek for Christianity in 
humanity. For this purpose they are reduced 
to the necessity of modifying and mutilating it. 
They wish to bring it within the limits of their 
favorite humanity, and this they can accomplish 
only by curtailing it, and depriving it of all 
that is truly supernatural and divine. We can 
not consent to this. We, too, love and admire 
humanity. We will not agree to abandon one 
of its genuine intuitions. We will hold by all 



106 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that is essential in the true idea — in the original 
type of it. We "will stand up for its legitimate 
place and authority. We will yield to none of 
them in this. But precisely for this very 
reason we will seek for our humanity in Chris- 
tianity. We will seek for it there, for no where 
else can we find it except in a rude, disjointed 
state. We will seek for it there, for there only 
do we see it reproduced in all its pristine beauty 
and perfection; nay, more, we see it adorned 
with higher excellences and attainments. We 
discover how humanity may be restored, and 
not only restored, but elevated and advanced. 
Yes, humanity ! our humanity ! for humanity it 
is, and will be to all eternity. 

You are a worshiper of humanity, perhaps. 
It is the object, the god, may we not call it, of 
your idolatry. We take you up on your own 
ground. We, too, reverence humanity, though 
we dare not worship it ; and it is exactly be- 
cause of this that we feel ourselves drawn toward 
Christianity. But what is your quarrel with 
it ? Is it because it does not speak of this idol 
of yours with becoming respect ? because it rep- 
resents it as fallen, degraded, guilty ? Are you 
shocked at finding the image you decked out 
with so many graces treated as a deformity, a 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 107 

monstrous abortion? But what if all this bo 
only the sober, undisguised, unvarnished truth ! 
You speak forever of humanity. You say many 
fine and pretty things of it. You really wax 
very eloquent upon the theme. But what is 
this humanity of which you talk so grandly 
and mysteriously ? What if it be after all only 
an ideal thing, a pure abstraction, a mere men- 
tal conception ! What if you have been mov- 
ing in an ideal world, and conversing only with 
imaginary beings ! Come now, and let us look 
this matter fairly in the face. Let us by all 
means understand each other — let us do this at 
least ; let us define our terms. Humanity ! 
What is it? Where is it? Show us, only 
show us this humanity, this pure, lofty, spir- 
itual thing, to the standard and touchstone of 
which you would bring all things — God, Christ, 
the world. Tell us where we shall find it, for 
we would go far, very far, to meet with it. Is 
it in yourself? You will not venture to say so. 
Shall we find it in others ? You can not tell. 
The truth is, you have been disporting with a 
shadow. You have been using a word to which 
you attached no definite meaning, and which 
had no counterpart in the actual world of being. 
It is humanity in the abstract, you may say. 



108 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But we take leave to remind you that what we 
have to do with in this practical world is not 
this, but humanity in the concrete — real, living, 
embodied humanity — humanity as it exists in 
you, and me, and every one. Ah ! this is a 
very different matter. Ideal humanity is a 
yery fine thing, and I admit that it is sometimes 
right to view an object in its ideal, or theoret- 
ical side, not merely that our taste may be grat- 
ified, but that a high standard may be set before 
our eyes to stimulate our exertions. Ideal hu- 
manity, I repeat, is a very fine thing ; but actual 
humanity is a very poor thing, no better, by 
any means, than the Bible represents it. 

For, after all, it is the Bible, and that alone, 
which throws any satisfactory light on human 
nature, revealing to us its original perfection, 
its vast capacities, its possible recovery. It 
makes known at once the disease and the rem- 
edy ; not merely the remedy, I say, but the 
disease. True, it does not make the disease, it 
was there before — it is there independently of 
it — it is there altogether irrespective of any 
thing as to its origin — it is there as a great 
FACT in our history. It does not make it, but it 
makes it Jcnotvn ; yet not as if it were wholly 
unknown, for, to a certain extent, it reveals 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 109 

itself in the consciousness and experience of all 
men in all ages. Rather ought we to say, it 
makes that better known which, independently 
of any outward revelation, was imperfectly 
known — very imperfectly at the best. It is of 
the nature of the moral malady under which 
humanity labors that this should be so, consist- 
ing, as it does, of the weakening of our spirit- 
ual perceptions. 

It is all very well, as is the fashion now, to 
speak of the divine in man, of the higher wants 
and aspirations of our nature, of the utterances 
of the human spirit, deep and strong, crying 
after the true and the good, of the cravings of 
the human heart after something higher and 
holier. All this is very touching, and, to a cer- 
tain extent, very true. But whence, I de- 
mand — whence these breathings, these utter- 
ances, these longings ? They are developed, it 
will be said. Let it be so ; we will not quarrel 
now about a word. But how developed? how 
awakened? how drawn forth? How, but by 
culture from without ? It is light from a higher 
source, shining into the dark places of human- 
ity that, I do not say imparts, but enkindles, 
and intensifies those feelings, and gives them a 
right direction. The plain fact is, the persons 



110 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

to whom we now refer are unconsciously viewing 
humanity in the light of Christianity. They 
come to the consideration of the subject with 
minds enlightened and quickened by its discov- 
eries. It has imparted to them what may very 
well be called a Christian consciousness ; and 
thus they discover, what they rather questiona- 
bly term, the divine in man. Thus there have 
been awakened within them higher necessities 
and desires than nature knows ; and yet they 
most . ungratefully refuse to acknowledge the 
quarter to which they are indebted for it all ! 
For what taught them, I ask, to reverence hu- 
manity so highly? What taught them to feel 
that their nature is endowed with capacities 
which this poor world, with all its pomps and 
vanities, can not satisfy ? What lighted up the 
divine within them? What awoke the slum- 
bering god? What called forth those voices 
that seem to come from the world of spirits — 
those utterances that sound like the echoes of 
eternity? What forced upon them the pain- 
ful contrast between them and the Holy One? 
What but the Bible ! What but Christianity ! 
It is not a matter of conjecture, but of fact. 
For go now to those nations whose minds have 
not attained to any culture higher than that of 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. Ill 

nature, and speak to tliem of sin and holiness, 
of truth, and purity. These are words without- 
meaning to them, or, at any rate, without your 
deep spiritual meaning. Talk to them of the 
divine in man, of the higher wants and aspira- 
tions of our nature. Alas ! alas ! there is noth- 
ing in them as yet to send back a responsive 
movement. You are grieved and disappointed 
at this. But why should you ? You forget that 
you and they are looking at the same subject in 
different lights. You are erroneously transfer- 
ring to them views and feelings awakened in 
your mind under a totally different training. 
You keenly feel the moral degradation of hu- 
manity; they do not. Their religion, so far as 
they have any thing that really answers to that 
sacred name, is but the product and reflection 
of their own vile minds, and as water never 
rises higher than its own level, so men will 
never rise above their religious system; the 
probability is they will fall beneath it. You 
talk magnificently of the God-consciousness, 
and the Christian-consciousness, as something 
actually existing in all men. But see you not 
that it is a dream, a figment of a school. It is 
of no use to indulge in fine theories ; one well- 
established fact destroys them all ; and it is a 



112 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

fact that, beyond the pale of Christian culture, 
neither the disease of humanity, nor the cafe, 

is adequately known. 

This, then, is the first sense in which Chris- 
tianity is a culture. This is its first contribu- 
tion to the cause of humanity. It affords us 
just views of it, just views at once of its great- 
ness and littleness — its grandeur and meanness. 
It teaches us to reverence it ; and this is a great 
matter, for when a man despises his own nature, 
his case is well nigh hopeless. It renders us 
also dissatisfied with it; and this, too, is a great 
matter, for this is the spring of all efforts after 
amelioration. Christianity thus accomplishes 
two apparently opposite effects which no other 
system does. It teaches me not to think too 
highly of my nature, as some theological and 
philosophical systems do, for it reveals to me 
its poverty and meanness. It teaches me, too, 
not to despise my nature, nor despair of it, for 
it assures me that God does not despise it, nor 
despair of it, but has made provision for its 
redemption in a way of marvelous wisdom and 
grace. 

But, secondly, Christianity is a culture no 4 " 
only as making us acquainted with the true 
condition of humanity, but as fraught with 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 113 

healing and restorative power. It lays hold on 
humanity at all points. It is designed and 
fitted to leaven the -whole man, going down to 
the lowest depths of his nature, and pervading 
and influencing it through all its extent and 
variety. 

In human nature we find that unity in vari- 
ety, that variety in unity, which characterize all 
the other works of God. Our nature is a 
unity, and this unity is embodied in the term 
man 9 and is expressed in the I. Whatever is 
thought or done is the thinking or the doing 
of the entire person. And yet it is a variety, 
as well as a unity, and this variety finds ex- 
pression in the terms will, heart, conscience, 
and the like. Now, why do we introduce such 
psychological dissertations into a theological 
essay? We do so because we have a strong 
conviction, which is only deepening in the 
course of experience, that next to the knowl- 
edge of Christianity, which can only be ob- 
tained by looking outward, the knowledge of 
humanity, which can only be obtained by look- 
ing inward, is the most important. 

Divines are careful, and most right it is they 
should be so, to tell us that in regeneration no 
part of man's nature is left wholly unrenewed. 



114 ASPECTS 01 CHRISTIANITY. 

and .'on consists in the gradual 

rwal of the whole man after the image of 
L But is there not a tendency to general- 
ize here too much? The words hott 
Jicatio/K are indeed of frequent use. But un- 
less we make own 
nature : unless we open up the human mind 
with all its vast and varied capacities ; unless 

inanity as well as [ lity, 

we come far short of the good we hone 
strere 

For most surprising it is, how little, how very 

le do know of their own nature ; 
large portions of it being to the: 

■ never visited, and consequently 
never cultivated. Some parts of it are. indeed, 
well known — how could it be oth — partly 

een more frequently 
dire: 1, partly because they are more 

frequently called into exercise on the 
of the world, and the play of actual life. But 
other parts of it, and these the m : rand 

and spiritual by far, are, in a great measure, 
lost sight of. They he too deep for unthinking, 
unreflecting ich are most mi 

In a 

1 nobler fcrea earls of the 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 115 

deep ocean of man's nature, are not prized; 
they are not in demand; they have no market- 
able value. Those exquisitely-beautiful but 
lowly flowers — to change the metaphor — so rich 
in fragrance and beauty, that are to be met 
with only in the most retired bowers of the 
garden of the human soul, are overshadowed by 
taller and more imposing shrubs, or are rudely 
trodden under the foot of the careless passen- 
ger. They are too pure, gentle, and sensitive 
to thrive in the atmosphere of contention and 
selfishness. They are chilled and repressed. 
They are driven from a scene where there is 
no room allowed them to grow and effloresce. 
They shrink into darkness ; they droop, and 
languish, and all but die. 

And now one would think that surely relig- 
ion might have come to the assistance of our 
poor, ill-treated nature, rescuing those fair por- 
tions of it from unmerited obscurity, and ef- 
fecting a full development and perfect harmony 
of all those capacities with which it is enriched 
and adorned above all other departments of cre- 
ation. In the world, nothing better could have 
been looked for ; but in the Church, should not 
humanity have been exhibited in all its breadth ? 
Should not that have formed a school of training 



116 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

for the perfecting of our immortal nature? 
Has due prominence been given to this subject 
in the Church's teaching ? We fear not. Now 
at length, however, humanity is asserting its 
claims. Our neglected nature is lifting up its 
voice, and demanding attention. Shall we not 
listen to it? We shall be compelled, I think. 

Christianity was made for man, and, as it 
has been well said, there is something in it for 
every man, and for all in every man. And 
what is man? what are his necessities and ca- 
pacities ? 

Let it be particularly noticed, then, that the 
perfection of man's nature consists in its har- 
monious development. We have a strong con- 
viction that in this respect the human mind 
has not had justice done to it. It has not got 
a fair trial. One has limited his care and 
culture to one part of his nature, another to 
another part. But no one has yet set himself 
to the arduous task of doing justice to every 
part of his mental constitution. And hence 
there has been no actual exhibition, nor any 
thing approaching to it, of the beautiful har- 
mony by which it is characterized. No one 
has yet sounded the full diapason of this noble 
instrument, likest, perhaps, of all instruments to 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 117 

the organ, in respect of the marvelous combina- 
tions of which it is susceptible. You have list- 
ened to this noble instrument in some venera- 
ble edifice, and you have been subdued by turns 
and roused by its risings and fallings. Now it 
swells, and swells till it shakes the vaulted roof, 
and rolls away among the aisles like distant 
thunder. At one time a sweet and simple 
melody is played upon the higher keys, and 
breathes upon your ear like a zephyr; at 
another time you are startled, and amazed, and 
hurried along on a tide of the most intricate, 
unexpected, unimaginable harmony. It can 
imitate the sound of all other instruments, the 
mellow flute, the marshal trumpet, the piercing 
clarionet, the deep bassoon. It is an orches- 
tra of itself. There is no single instrument 
that can compete with it. It is the highest 
achievement of musical genius, and yet it is 
an exceedingly simple instrument. Where, 
then, lies its unrivaled excellence? It lies, 
as one says, in a single word — combination. 
Such is the human mind in its construction, 
simple, yet manifold; and such is the music 
it is capable of yielding — music in the fullest 
sense of the word, as including both melody 
and harmony. If you cultivate one part of 



118 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

jour nature only, you will produce melody, 
but harmony is the result of the cultivation of 
the whole. 

If a person cultivate only his intellectual 
nature, he will be a cold, hard, skeptical being, 
incapable of any generous enthusiasm, or any 
warm attachment, or any religious fervor, or 
any poetic sentiment. Alas ! for the world if 
such men prevailed. It is not among these 
we are to look for the loving parent, the affec- 
tionate friend, the devoted patriot, the dis- 
interested philanthropist, the devout Christian. 

Or, if a person cultivate only his emotional 
nature, if he is all heart and no head, as some 
are all head and no heart, he will be a mere 
creature of feeling, the sport of fancy, the 
victim of passion, the martyr of sensibility. 
He wiil be possessed of no solidity and strength 
of character. He will be incapable of taking 
a calm and dispassionate view of things upon 
their merits. He will be driven about like a 
ship without a rudder, the sport of every wind 
that blows. Such emotional, sensitive, ethereal 
beings, are not fit for a world like this. 

Or, if a person cultivate only his moral and 
religions nature, he will become a gloomy 
fanatic, or a raving enthusiast, or a dreamy 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 119 

mystic, or a religious sentimentalist, or a harsh 
dogmatist and narrow-minded bigot. Though 
this is unquestionably the highest part of our 
nature, yet it is only when conscience acts in 
unison with the intellect and the heart, that 
it is under safe guidance. Ail history shows 
that religion dissevered from the intellect and 
the heart runs into opposite and dangerous 
extremes. It is of great importance that the 
intellectual and emotional elements should have 
their due place in our religious system, and 
in our religious experience. 

Or, if a person cultivate only his cestlietical 
nature, as it is now called, he will be a mere 
man of taste, a creature of imagination, living 
in an unreal world, and unfit foi the sober 
realities of life. 

And finally, if a person cultivate only his 
active or volitional nature, that is, if his will 
be too strongly developed, he will become self- 
willed, obstinate, ungovernable. When one 
who has naturally a strong will is possessed 
at the same time of a cold heart, a narrow 
intellect, and a perverted conscience, he is one 
of the most dangerous beings in the world. 

And let it not be said that all this is meta- 
physical, and more suited for the philosopher 



120 ASPECTS OE CHRISTIANITY. 

than the divine. It is not so. It is eminently 
practical and evangelical, opening up as it does 
the whole doctrine of sanctification. Here we 
have something to guide us in aiming at the 
sanctification of our nature. For it is not 
enough that we desire it, and pray for it as a 
general thing, but we must be prepared to re- 
ceive it in detail. And have we not here, too, 
the explanation of a perplexing phenomenon 
of no infrequent occurrence in the Church? 
You have a Christian friend; you can not 
doubt in the main that he is a Christian — that 
he is a partaker of grace. You can not doubt 
this without doubting the existence of personal 
Christianity altogether. And yet you are 
shocked — startled at finding in him, not once 
only, but many times, the manifestation of a 
most unchristian temper, a most unamiable 
disposition, a strange waywardness and incon- 
sistency, or, it may be, a low moral tone in 
reference to some things. The explanation is 
this — there is grace in the man, but he is not 
carrying it fully out — he is not stirring it up 
into exercise. He has got the principle of 
holiness in him, but he is not seeking to have 
his whole nature thoroughly and equally leav- 
ened with it. The Spirit dwells in him, but he 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 121 

is continually grieving Him by resisting His 
sanctifying influence on some part of his nature 
more especially. And yet the man believes in 
something called sanctification, and honestly, as 
he thinks, prays for it. I do believe that what 
he needs is that he should be more thoroughly 
acquainted with his own nature, and with the 
nature of sanctification, too, as not a mystical, 
wholesale, abstract thing, but a moral culture, 
that is to say, a minute, laborious, watchful, 
unceasing cultivation of every portion of his 
compound nature, in the way, of course, which 
the Author of his nature has appointed — by 
his own Spirit, and through his own truth. 

Christianity is addressed to the whole of 
man's nature, and it can not be aright under- 
stood and fully embraced but by the whole 
man. It is not one part of our nature that 
has suffered from the fall, but every part of 
it; and Christianity — the Gospel, has this ad- 
vantage over every other religion, that it fully 
meets the necessities of humanity. It ad- 
dresses itself to man's intellect in its doctrines, 
and in the bearing of these on our condition, 
and on the Divine character. It addresses 
itself to the conscience in its views of sin, 
duty, responsibility, law. It addresses itself to 



122 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the heart in its appeals founded on the love of 
Christ. It addresses itself to the will in its 
overtures of pardon and peace. And it ad- 
dresses itself to the imagination, and to our 
finer sentiments and susceptibilities in its sub- 
lime views of the glory x>f God, and of his 
mighty works of grace and creation. 

There is a marvelous variety and breadth in 
Christianity, suited to that marvelous variety 
and breadth which characterizes the human 
mind. This is a proof that it was made for 
man as man, and that it was made by Him who 
knew what was in man, because he formed the 
human soul. As culture, therefore, for the 
mind, independently of all other considerations, 
there is no study like the study of the Bible. 
But there is yet another contribution, still more 
important than any yet mentioned, which Chris- 
tianity has made to the culture of humanity. 
It reveals, and is the vehicle of a divine influ- 
ence. The Holy Spirit has direct and imme- 
diate intercourse with the human spirit. This 
was needed. This completes the culture. To 
those who ask him, he is given. Under this 
divine, spiritual, supernatural influence, and 
in the use of all other means, our pros- 
trate nature is raised up, and is preparing 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. i23 

for higher exercises and enjoyments than the 
present. 

We have said that development is the great 
law of our nature — that progress in one direc- 
tion or other is its characteristic. We have put 
to ourselves this question : Is there any limit to 
its advancement ? is there any goal at which it 
must stop short? will the time ever come when 
farther improvement is impossible? — and we 
have been bold enough to answer no. What a 
glorious prospect is thus opened up to those who 
will fall in with the merciful provision of the 
Gospel for their spiritual renovation ! Eternal 
progress ! Never-ending advancement ! Per- 
petual development ! 

In the contemplation of this the mind 
sinks — the imagination stoops on its wearied 
wing — " the giddy brain grows dim." We are 
fain to return to humbler thoughts ; and mean- 
while are animated to press after higher and 
higher attainments. 

How near lie presses on the angel's wing! 
Which is the seraph ? which the born of clay ? 

And now let us mark how the passage which 
has been placed at the head of this discourse 
bears on the subject in hand. What we have 



124 ASPECTS 0E CHRISTIANITY. 

been calling culture — adopting, for a time, a 
term of every-day use, to show that we are not 
necessitated to confine ourselves entirely to 
purely theological language — the Bible calls 
sanctification, a term of immeasurably greater 
depth and significance. Every other word is 
poor compared with this ; and it is worthy of 
being remarked, that not only the ideas of 
Scripture, but its very terms, are above this age 
and every age. We can not afford to dispense 
with either. 

It is truly a sublime word this — sanctification. 
To perceive this, we must have realizing views 
of that great, spiritual, godlike thing, HOLINESS, 
which is the essence of it. And then, again, 
for this end, we must have realizing views of 
the Divine character, in conformity to which 
this holiness lies. And, finally, for this end, we 
must have a power of spiritual discernment con- 
ferred upon us ; for God can be known only 
in his own light — "In thy light shall we see 
light." 

The common view of sanctification is, that it 
is a making holy ; and yet this is by no means 
the only, nor the chief idea involved in it. 
The grand underlying idea is consecration, the 
setting apart for divine service. We do not 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 125 

fathom the depth of this word, we do not catch 
the full inspiration of it, unless we view it in 
this light. While we regard it merely as the 
removal of sin — of moral defilement — we take 
but a negative view of it. This is not the fun- 
damental, essential idea. There may be sancti- 
fication without any need for purification, or 
moral cleansing. The actual removal of sin, in 
its guilt and power, can ever form a part of it 
only in as far as it is necessary — and it is neces- 
sary in us — to the attainment of this high end. 
And it is only by taking this view of it that we 
can vindicate its application to the Redeemer — 
"I sanctify myself;" and as it is elsewhere 
said, "whom the Father hath sanctified and 
sent into the world." We are startled at this. 
Christ sanctified ! we exclaim ; how can this be ? 
Was he not free from sin? Had he not a di- 
vine nature, and a spotless human nature ? 
True, most true. But we are using the word in 
our own arbitrary, confined, inferior sense, and 
not in its true, deep, Scriptural meaning — that 
of consecration for some grand and holy work. 
That we may be sanctified — that we may be 
fitted and counted worthy to serve Go'd — that 
we may be of any use in showing forth his glory, 
it is indispensably necessary that we should be 



126 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

purified — that our nature should be delivered 
from its grievous moral taint — necessary it is 
that we should be thus sanctified and made ves- 
sels "meet for the Master's use." This is the 
sanctification we need ; and it is a means to an 
end, and that end the consecration of the whole 
man, with all its gifts of heart, will, conscience, 
intellect, taste, feeling, disposition, to the Divine 
honor. Is there not something truly grand and 
elevating even in the thought of this ? Does it 
not tend to exalt our conceptions of sanctifica- 
tion — to make it a more profound and spiritual 
thing, and also, I think, a more intelligible 
thing ? For it seems to me that our views, for 
the most part, are exceedingly low and indis- 
tinct, and that this arises partly from a want of 
clearness of definition — it being too readily 
taken for granted that certain phrases — holi- 
ness, sanctification, and the like — are well un- 
derstood, and that it is enough to reiterate them 
in people's ears ; while, in truth, they are but 
familiar sounds, empty symbols, that stand for 
little or nothing. They are purely theological 
terms, and only the initiated understand them. 
But when we say holiness implies conformity 
to the Divine will, sanctification means consecra- 
tion to the Divine service, a sanctified person is 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 127 

one who has come out of the world and lives for 
God — much of the darkness and mysteriousness 
with which the subject is surrounded is removed, 
and ail is done that can be done, except by a 
higher influence, to make men acquainted with 
the reality. 

"For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they 
also may be sanctified through the truth!" Be- 
hold here the true nature and method of sancti- 
fication opened up. Its nature, our being made 
like Christ, like him in his conformity to the 
will of his heavenly Father, and in subjection 
to his authority ! Its method, the Son of God 
laying hold of humanity, and redeeming, sancti- 
fying, consecrating it for God ! For their 
sakes — in behalf of those he came to save : 
"Forasmuch as the children are partakers of 
flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the 
same, that through death he might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is, the devil." 
I sanctify myself — I offer myself up as a sacri- 
fice to God; I lay myself on the divine altar; 
I consecrate myself as a propitiation for their 
sins, as an example for their imitation ; I take 
human nature upon me to show how beautiful 
and perfect it is capable of being made — to 
prove beyond doubt, that it is not an utterly-lost 



128 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and accursed thing, but is capable of being re- 
stored to more than its original brightness. 
That they also may be sanctified — made holy 
like me, and devoted as I am to "Him, of 
whom, and through whom, and to. whom, are all 
things " made partakers of my image, adorned 
with all the graces of my character. Through 
the truth — as a medium revealing the Divine 
character, as a bond of union between me and 
all the members of my mystical body, as the 
instrument of regeneration whereby the Spirit 
renews the soul, as the mirror of divinity, the 
" glass in which they beholding my glory shall 
be changed into the same image, from glory to 
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 

Say now if humanity is not to be found in 
Christianity — found there in its genuine perfec- 
tion — found there in the truth that reveals the 
image of God, after which it is renewed — found 
there in the GRACE that triumphs over the power 
of sin — found there in the person of the Re- 
deemer, the second Adam, the Man Christ 
Jesus, the Man of Men ! 

! despair not of your nature. It is sadly 
defaced. It is steeped in sin. It is sunken, 
crushed, paralyzed. But despair not of it. 
Look to the Savior of men, to his atonement, 



CHRISTIANITY A CULTURE. 129 

his grace, his example. Pray to the source of 
all power and might, and let this be your 
prayer, " Sanctify us through thy truth, thy 
word is truth/ 7 

The idea is grand! Christ the type and 
first fruits of restored humanity! Conformity 
to the image of God's dear Son, that he may be 
the first-born among many brethren ! This is 
elevation. This is consecration. And this is 
the end— how noble and worthy of God ! — of 
the whole economy of salvation and of Divine 
providence — of the covenant mirror of the 
Father, of the work of the Son, of the indwell- 
ing of the Spirit ; this the result that engaged 
the Eternal Mind before the world was, and 
that will remain the object of its delightful con- 
templation forever ! 

9 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 131 



V. 

CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 

" I have given them thy word ; and the -world hath hated 
them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not 
of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out 
of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the 
evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the 
world." John xvii, 14, 15. 16. 

In treating of Christianity as a discipline, 
we are led to look at it in what some may term 
its sterner and severer aspect. There is un- 
questionably, at first sight, something rather 
forbidding in this word discipline, calling up, as 
it does, before the mind many painful ideas. 
The mind is thus thrown into an attitude of 
suspicion, of antagonism toward it. If there is 
much in Christianity to attract, it were in vain to 
Bay that there is nothing to repel. If there are 
points of affiliation, there are also points of 
contrast, and these latter must not be kept out 
of sight — though they need not be obtruded 
upon the attention, and put in the very fore- 



132 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

front, for they will come up in due time, and in 
their own order, when the mind is fairly and 
honestly in contact with it. We can not long 
conceal them, if we would, and there is no 
reason why we should seek to do so, for Chris- 
tianity will bear to be looked at on every side; 
and though, to a hasty observer, one side may 
appear more inviting than another, a deeper 
and closer view of it will convince us that it 
is all equally attractive, nay, that those very 
portions which at first seem most dark and 
mysterious, are in reality the brightest and most 
precious of all. 

Let no one, then, be alarmed at the view now 
given of Christianity as a discipline — as a 
conflict, as a trial. Why, this is not peculiar 
to Christianity. He who counts upon getting 
through life without this, will find himself mis- 
taken. Life is a battle — a struggle, and a sore 
one ; and this world is the arena on which this 
battle is to be fought, this struggle to be carried 
on. From our birth to our death w T e are under 
discipline of some kind or other. There is the 
discipline of the family ; and there is the disci- 
pline of the school; and there is the discipline of 
the workshop, or the counting-house ; and there 
is the discipline of society. There is mental 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 133 

discipline ; and there is moral discipline. There 
is the discipline of the heart, and of the under- 
standing, and of the conscience, and of the 
will and dispositions. Learning is a discipline, 
and so is business, and so is politics, and so 
is philosophy, and why should it be deemed 
a strange thing that Christianity is a discipline ; 
that it, too, has its severer aspect, its diffi- 
culties, its disagreeables, its sacrifices, its hard- 
ships, ere the goal be reached, and the prize 
won? We ask no more for our religion than 
that it should have impartial justice done to 
it. We protest against its being regarded as 
something. so very peculiar in this respect. We 
deny that it subjects people to painful sacrifices, 
and severe struggles, and arduous duties, from 
which they would otherwise be free. The plain 
fact is, we have but a choice — hardly that, 
perhaps, in some cases — of the hind of dis- 
cipline which we shall undergo. Discipline in 
some measure, conflict in some form, pain in 
some quarter, we must be prepared to face. 
We may not like the species of discipline 
to which Christianity would subject us, and 
we may reject it. But let us at least know 
what we are doing. Let us not deceive 
ourselves with the expectation that all will be 



134 ASPECTS OP CHRISTIANITY. 

smooth and pleasant ; most assuredly it will not 
be so. 

We speak of the adaptation of Christianity 
to human nature — to its cravings, to its ne- 
cessities; but the truth is, this adaptation 
would not be perfect if Christianity were not 
a discipline. The Gospel is of the nature of 
a remedy, and all remedies are more or less 
painful. This is another point of analogy be- 
tween this aspect of Christianity, and other 
parts of Divine providence. If we quarrel 
with the remedial measures, it is because we 
have no just view of the magnitude and danger 
of the disease. Ah, yes! it is not every ap- 
plication that will reach down to the core of 
our disorder, and expel it from our moral con- 
stitution. Severe treatment is necessary, and 
"being necessary, it is merciful. It is painful, 
but salutary; and thus it is that the more 
enlarged and profound our acquaintance w T ith 
Christianity becomes, the more our admiration 
of it is raised as a system of unparalleled 
wisdom and grace. 

In following out, then, this view, we would 
remark that Christianity is disciplinary in as far 
as it requires of us a certain mental training 
and preparation for the reception of its truths. 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 135 

These truths are humbling and sanctifying, 
and thus come at once into violent collision 
with the native pride and depravity of the 
heart. Now begins a struggle, in some cases 
very severe and prolonged, between the author- 
ity of God speaking in his word, and the re- 
bellious will of the individual man. In some 
cases the struggle issues in the rejection of 
these truths; in some cases it issues in their 
reception. How this last result is to be ac- 
counted for needs not to be explained to those 
who believe in Divine influence. In the mean 
time, we are viewing the question rather on 
the side of man than on the side of God, and 
what we wish to bring out is the nature 
and greatness of that inward conflict, and in- 
ward change which are implied in the very 
act of one's becoming a Christian. There is 
a mental discipline gone through, a schooling 
down, as Dr. Chalmers calls it, of the whole 
soul, a breaking up of the heart, an awakening 
of the conscience, a subduing of the will — 
all of which involves much severe exercise of 
mmd, great mental effort and conflict, a mighty 
moral revolution, as the same great writer calls 
it. This is what we may term the philosophical 
or psychological view of the matter. The more 



136 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

strictly- theological, or Scriptural view of it is, 
that it is a law-work. "The law," says Paul, 
"was our schoolmaster to "bring us unto Christ.' , 
It was so then, it is so now, and ever will be. 
We must all enter into this school; we must 
all pass under this rod; we must all undergo 
this discipline ; we may, some of us, need more 
of it than others ; but nothing will bring down 
the proud heart of man, and prepare him for 
the reception of the grace of the Gospel, but 
the holy law of God realized in all the extent 
of its claims and sanctions. It is this that 
brings the sinner to sit as a little child at the 
feet of Jesus. It is this that brings him trem- 
bling and convicted to the foot of the cross. 
It is this that cures him of his pride and self- 
righteousness, and makes him fain to be saved 
in God's own way. This is an inward dis- 
cipline. There may be along with this an 
outward discipline, consisting of afflictions of 
various kinds, which are not without their use 
in weakening the heart's attachment to the 
world, and shutting it up to the Savior. But 
it is the inward discipline that is the chief 
thing. It is in vain to deny that Christianity 
makes large demands upon the natural heart, 
requiring it to receive doctrines of deep and 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 137 

awful mysteriousness, to admit a new occupant 
to sit on the throne of its affections, to give up 
its longest and most dearly-cherished attach- 
ments. And will any one say that this is easily 
done, done as a matter of course, done without 
our knowing how or when ? It is easy indeed 
to go a certain length in the admiration of 
Christianity. But when the heart comes closely 
into contact with it, and its claims are realized, 
then it is that a sudden and strong recoil is felt, 
that a positive enmity is awakened, v/hich indi- 
cates a thorough alienation of heart from God, 
a deep undercurrent of belief, of which we had 
previously no conception. Every one who has 
got beyond the mere form and outside of relig- 
ion has felt this, and has thus learned, in the 
light of his own experience, that this inward 
discipline of which we speak, this mental train- 
ing and preparation for the faith of the Gospel, 
is a deep necessity of man's nature viewed in 
connection, or rather in contrast, with the high 
and holy character of Christianity. 

We remark farther, that Christianity is disci- 
plinary in as far as it calls us to carry on a war- 
fare against the remaining sinful tendencies of 
our nature. 

The Christian life is a conflict. We are all 



138 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY, 

familiar with this; it is one of the common- 
places of theology, one of the stereotyped ex- 
pressions of the pulpit. And yet it is no 
commonplace truth. It is a deep truth, and 
few of us, it is to be feared, have entered into 
the spirit of it. It is no mere metaphor, but a 
terrible reality. Christianity, wiien embraced 
in faith, brings us deliverance from the con- 
demning and reigning power of sin. But sanc- 
tification — the establishment of the soul iii holi- 
ness — is gradual and progressive. And why is 
this the case ? Why, but because Christianity 
is disciplinary in its character from first to 
last? Because it is throughout a system of 
trial — a system that calls into exercise the 
deepest feelings and strongest capacities of our 
nature — a system of human effort as well as of 
divine grace — a system that will not suffer the 
Christian to be idle, but stirs him up to "work 
out his salvation with fear and trembling." 
His old enemy sin remaining within him is an 
occasion of trial and discipline, and he is thus 
trained to " endure hardship, as a good soldier 
of Jesus Christ." The continued besetments of 
sin are a severe discipline, as they call for con- 
stant watchfulness lest his sleepless foe should 
gain an advantage over him ; for constant pray- 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 139 

erfuhiess y that he may obtain the grace in which 
alone he can overcome — " prayer will keep his 
armor bright;" for constant faith, whereby he 
may " quench all the fiery darts of the wicked 
one;" for constant resistance, against all the 
movements of his own deceitful heart, and 
against all the allurements of sense; and for 
constant patience and perseverance, that he 
may not weary of the conflict, and sleep upon his 
armor, and dream of safety when danger is nigh. 
In no other way would these graces of the Chris- 
tian life be called into play. But for this disci- 
plinary treatment there would be no room for the 
exhibition, and the strengthening of some of the 
finest features of the Christian character ; yes, 
the strengthening of them, for it is true of all 
our physical, mental, moral, and spiritual endow- 
ments and capacities, that they grow by use, 
that they acquire a glow of strength and beauty 
in very proportion as they are put forth upon 
their proper objects. 

Now, we do think it is of great importance to 
understand the reasonableness — the moral ne- 
cessity, in fact — of the constitution of the 
Christian scheme which makes Christianity a 
discipline. It tends to reconcile us to an ar- 
rangement with which we are but too apt to 



" CHRIS II 

there be is less s : — wh 

: that you are >nly wi 

id 1 I re- 

\::_ I )vei 

-t - ••■...: . ■.. your rebel! 

I 

mat 
moi 



CHEISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 141 

and is not that good for you? It increases 
your hatred of sin as the enemy of your peace, 
and as wielding a prodigious power to disturb 
and imperil you, and is not that good for you? 
It endears to you the grace of the Gospel, it 
draws you closer to Christ, it teaches you more 
and more your dependence on the Holy Spirit 
for holiness, and is not that good for you? 
Are not all these things good for you, good for 
us all? Could we do without such experience? 
Would we have been without such discipline, 
painful and humiliating as it unquestionably has 
been ? I think not. There are times, no doubt, 
when we feel otherwise. But in our calmer mo- 
ments we can not but feel and acknowledge the 
wisdom and the goodness that preside over us, 
and deal with us, rather according to our neces- 
sities than our wishes. When our measure of 
grace and glory have been attained, then will 
this inward discipline, this spiritual warfare, 
come to a close, but not till then ; and in the 
view of this, let us, with the apostle — when 
treating of this same subject — thank God, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

We would remark, finally, that Christianity 
is disciplinary in as far as it requires us to 
remain in this world of duty and trial, and to 



142 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

act ■: it as C 

our position. 

The world is a training school for the Chris- 
tian. This will explain why he is not removed 
from the world when through grace he is 
"chosen out of it:" or, on q of 

his being left in it, why his relation to it is not 
in some way so changed as that he shall be 
above the sphere of its influence. "Why is he 
still left in the precise position, socially and 
politically, in which he ; and at the time 
of his conversion ? Nay, so far is his position 
from being improved, it is in some respects ren- 
dered more trying. Xew trials, new difficulties, 
new conflicts spring up. of his I 

ing come out of the world, and encountered 
enmil ing, too, from his more acute per- 

ceptions, and more spiritual feeling and discern- 
ment in regard to the evils that abound in it. 
"Why is he left in such a world ? It is for the 
glory of God, and for his own spiritual good ; 
and the wori ited to answer both of these 

high ends ; it is an arena on which he may so 
live and act as to promote the Divine glory and 
his own sanctification. The world, we repeat, 
is a training school for the Christian. 

Now, it is of great importance that he should 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 143 

take this vievf of the world, and of his position 
in it — namely, that it answers the end of his 
spiritual discipline, and of his training for 
heaven. How common is it to say that his 
connection with a present world is hurtful to 
the Christian, entangling his affections, irrita- 
ting his mind, debasing his thoughts ! It is a 
never-ceasing source of vexation and injury to 
him. How much happier and holier would he 
be were he somehow or other dissociated from 
it — were there some little ethereal world to 
which he could be transported, where he might 
breathe a purer air, converse with purer beings, 
and engage in purer occupations ! Who has not 
ofttimes sighed for this ? Who has not sympa- 
thized with the Psalmist when he said, in words 
of surpassing beauty and pathos, " ! that I 
had wings like a dove, for then would I flee 
away and be at rest?" Who has not envied 
those who have gone before to heaven, and 
uttered the wish, 0! that I were with them! 
We have often done this — all of us; and we 
call this heavenly-mindedness. We think that 
these are moments of peculiar spirituality and 
elevation, and that they are well-pleasing to 
God. And yet we may be mistaken. We may 
be consulting our own feelings rather than our 



144 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

own good or God's glory. We say these worldly 
cares fret, pollute, and injure the mind — draw- 
ing it off divine things, marring its progress in 
grace, and interrupting its communion with 
God. There is truth here, but not the whole 
truth. We blame the world, and yet the world 
is not so much the cause as the occasion of all 
this. The evil is in the heart, and all the world 
does, or can do, is to bring it forth to light. 
And is it not well it should be made manifest ? 
It is thus, and thus only, we can come to know 
ourselves aright. I had never known — may the 
Christian say — how much sin there was in me, 
how much earthliness of mind, how much fret- 
fulness and irritability of temper, how little 
faith and patience, submission and meekness I 
had, were it not that I was brought into rude 
conflict with the stormy elements of this world's 
strife and contention ; were it not that I was 
reduced to straits of various kinds ; were it not 
that I met with many sore bereavements and 
bitter disappointments ; were it not that I was 
at one time raised high, at another time brought 
low ; were it not that I had to face persecution, 
and to encounter opposition. All this was for 
my advantage, for it was the means of reveal- 
ing to me my inmost character. Had I been 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 145 

suffered to pass through the world, as over a 
calm, untroubled lake, that pictures the blue 
sky, and every little cloud that flits over its 
face; had I been suffered to walk in flowery 
paths, 1 would have formed a very erroneous 
idea of myself, and others would have done the 
same. I would have thought myself, and others 
would have given me credit for being, far better 
than I am. And not knowing myself, what a 
poor, weak, worldly, unstable creature I was, I 
had not known so well my need of Divine grace. 
My experience in this world, arising out of my 
connection with it, though painful and humilia- 
ting to myself, has been eminently salutary, for 
it has taught me, as I could not otherwise have 
been taught, my need of a better righteousness 
than my own for acceptance, and my need of 
better strength than my own to uphold me. 
And it has counteracted my love for the world 
itself, which has proved so inimical to my peace, 
and quickened my desires after that better 
world where sin and sorrow are unknown ! ! 
yes ; I would not have missed such discipline for 
any consideration. Nor shall I quarrel with 
my lot — with my condition in the world, be 
what it may, for I am assured it is precisely 

what my necessities, my best interests, even 
10 



146 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

those of my soul demand. I am no judge of 
this, but there is One who is, and never, never 
shall I attempt to thwart Him, or say unto 
Him, What dost Thou? He knows my char- 
acter, and what treatment I need. He knows 
what will keep me low and dependent on my- 
self. He knows what work I have to do, and 
what preparation is necessary to fit me for it. 
He knows to what future glory he designs to 
raise me, and through what process of puri- 
fication I must be made to pass in my way 
to it. Thus may every Christian speak of 
the " conduct of Divine providence;" thus 
may he characterize the way by which the 
Lord has led him. It has been a right way, 
a good way, a suitable way. All things have 
been made to work together for his good as 
one loving and serving God. 

The world, then, is a school of training and 
discipline to the Christian, and this is the 
reason why his connection with it is main- 
tained. It tries his strength of principle; it 
tries his faith, his integrity, his firmness, his 
spirituality, his patience, his endurance. Right 
discipline is good for the mind. It strengthens 
it, gives it a tone, imparts energy to it, rouses 
it to exertion, and prepares it for deeds of 



CHKISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 14T 

heroism and renown. Without discipline the 
mind becomes weak, feeble, relaxed, and unfit 
for any thing.- It is discipline that makes men 
great. Were there no conflict to maintain, no 
arduous duties to perform, no powerful enemies 
to encounter, "no dangerous temptation to resist, 
there could be no true greatness of character. 
These things make the man — make the hero — 
make the martyr. If you look at the eleventh 
chapter of Paul's epistle to the Hebrews, you 
will find that all those whose names have been 
deemed worthy of being enshrined in that 
bright catalogue, passed through an ordeal — 
a severe discipline of some kind or other. To 
them the world was an arena for maturing 
and displaying their graces, and for glorifying 
God by these graces, his own work in their 
souls. 

We must beware, therefore, of being dis- 
contented with our position in the world, or 
of attempting to -flee from it, for in so doing 
we are attempting to thwart God in his plans; 
we are fleeing from duty, from danger, from 
discipline. 

It will at once occur to every one, that we 
have here an antidote to a Popish error; 
namely, Monasticism. Christianity is not a 



148 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

system of this kind. There is nothing un~ 
worldlike about it. It lifts men in spirit, and 
aim, and hope, above the world; but it does 
not place them in antagonism to it, it does 
not render them indifferent to it, it does not 
bid them flee from it. Its sphere of opera- 
tion and manifestation is the world — this very 
world we live in, the society in which we 
move, the rank to which we belong, the pro- 
fession which we follow. This is our sphere 
for serving the Ptedeemer, glorifying God, 
benefiting others, and improving our own moral 
character. 

Christianity is not like a sickly plant that 
lives only in a hot-house, and when exposed 
to the open air is killed by the frost of a 
single night. More like is it to a hardy ever- 
green that strikes its roots deep, and that 
no winter strips of its foliage. Our Chris- 
tianity is worth nothing if it can not fit us 
for the battle of life, if it do not strengthen 
us for the duties and trials of the world, if 
it do not brace up the powers of our minds, 
and make us strong, vigorous, healthy, brave 
Christians, who can look the world boldly in 
the face — who can take their own place in the 
world, and exert their due influence — who can 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 149 

use the world without abusing it — who can 
carry their Christianity into all the depart- 
ments of this Yforld's business and politics— 
who can show the world that religion makes 
men neither fools nor knaves, neither incapa- 
bles nor hypocrites. We greatly want a sturdy 
Christianity that will bear the brunt of the 
world's assaults — that will stand its rude 
shocks, and bear the tear and wear of every- 
day life. We greatly want strong, manly, 
well-disciplined, well-balanced Christians who 
can engage in the undertakings and conflicts 
of their age with unimpaired spirituality and 
undiminished grace. There is something alto- 
gether wrong with us when we shrink from 
coming boldly forward and taking our own part, 
our own share of responsibility, and of labor in 
the great cause of Christianity and humanity. 
We say, perhaps, "We can not do so with 
safety. When we mingle in the conflict we 
lose our spirituality. It is not for us to act 
as others do, who seem to live forever in 
an atmosphere of strife and bustle." The true 
explanation is this, we have lost sight of that 
aspect in which we have now been contempla- 
ting Christianity; namely, as a discipline. We 
do not love this aspect of it. Ours has been an 



150 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

apathetic, dreamy, selfish. Christianity. Chris- 
tianity has been with us a culture, it is time 
it should he a discipline. It is time we should 
surrender ourselves fully to its disciplinary 
character, and imbibe its disciplinary spirit. 
It is time we should offer ourselves sacrifices 
on its altar for the glory of God and the good 
of man. It is time we should listen to its 
trumpet-call to gird on the Christian panoply, 
and come to the help of the Lord against 
the mighty. Think of the Captain of our 
salvation, whose whole life was 'one of disci- 
pline, of Ifikrd labor, and sore fight with the 
world's opposition. Was there any shrinking 
on his part? Did he not endure the cross, 
and despise the shame? Did he not nerve him- 
self for the most dreadful of all conflicts ? Did 
he not set his face like a flint, so that noth- 
ing could move him? And Christ's disciples 
should be like himself. He has left them in 
the world to be his witnesses, his agents, his 
embassadors. 

Would you know how to act in the world, 
and toward the world? Hear what he says, 
" They are not of the world, even as I am not 
of the world." How exactly does this indicate 
the Christian's relation to the world — in it, 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 151 

but not of it! In it, this expresses the point 
of connection with the world. Not of it, this 
expresses the point of separation from the 
world. 

If any thing can make the Christian under- 
stand his position in this world, and reconcile 
him to it, it is the thought that Christ prays 
to his Father, not that he would take him out 
of the world, but that he would keep him from 
the evil. Not that thou wouldst take them out 
of the world; for that would not be either 
for their good or his glory. They have some- 
thing yet to do and something yet to suffer. 
They have a purifying process to undergo ere 
they can be made meet for the inheritance 
of saints, incorruptible, and undefiled. And 
not till this disciplining and refining process 
is complete, and there is no more for them 
to do or to suffer, will the Son pray to the 
Father for their removal, saying, "Father, 
I will that they also whom thou hast given 
me be with me where I am; that they may 
behold my glory." But that thou wouldst 
keep them from the evil. Ah! that is for 
their comfort, that is better than their being 
actually taken out of the world, and if they 
are in a right state of mind they will feel 



152 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

this. They will be more anxious to glorify 
God on earth, than to enjoy him in heaven. 
They will be more anxious to be delivered 
from sin than from suffering, for sin is the 
only real evil, and exemption from this they 
are insured — exemption, that is, to this ex- 
tent, that they shall not be tempted by it 
above that they are able to bear. This they 
often dread. They tremble at the thought of 
continuing long in a world where their eternal 
salvation is put in such jeopardy. But they 
have only to bethink themselves of the Savior's 
intercession ; they have only to remember that 
while they are battling with the winds and 
the waves, Jesus is in yonder mountain pray- 
ing; they have only to lay hold by faith of 
this most precious promise, to feel raised above 
the world, and strengthened for whatsoever evil 
may assault them. 

Most assuredly there is nothing in the be- 
liever's connection with the world unduly to 
alarm him. Let him only have the "mind 
of Christ," and he will have that in him 
which will guide him safely through its dan- 
gerous and mazy paths, and uphold him in 
the midst of its fiery trials. Let him judge 
of every thing that befalls him in life in 



CHRISTIANITY A DISCIPLINE. 153 

this light — this is discipline for me, how shall 
I best improve it for my spiritual good? He 
will meet with this discipline daily, I had al- 
most said hourly. He will meet with it in 
the commonest every-day duties and cares of 
life. It is not in great things only that 
discipline lies hid. Ofttimes the severest dis- 
cipline—the sorest trial of faith and temper 
and general character — is to be found in 
matters of very small moment viewed by 
themselves. In fact, all is disciplinary in some 
way or other. 

And does not this invest life — every one's 
life — with an importance and an interest it would 
not otherwise possess, connecting it so closely 
with the moral government of God on the 
one hand, and with our own moral character 
and everlasting destiny on the other ? 

0, for grace to enable us to fall in with 
the arrangements of Infinite Wisdom, and to 
derive benefit from every event in our history, 
which, though painful now, will be made to 
tell advantageously upon the future, and will 
go to increase the sum of blessedness in that 
world where such discipline will no more bo 
required ! 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 155 



VI. 

CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 

" That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, 
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the 
world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory 
•which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may 
be one, even as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that 
they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may 
know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou 
hast loved me." John xvii, 21-23. 

We live in an age when, both in the world 
and in the Church, both in philosophy and 
religion, there is a striving after what has been 
termed a higher unity than has yet been at- 
tained. There is a growing dissatisfaction with 
the present disjointed fragmentary state of 
things. There is a strong conviction that this 
is not as it ought to be and might be — that 
it is not as it once was, and shall be again. 
The demand is for some broad, catholic basis 
which may form a meeting-place for at least 
friendly intercourse ; for some grand underlying 
truth which may serve as a foundation for the 



156 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

reconstruction of systems diverse, but not oppo- 
site ; for some simple yet comprehensive scheme 
of thought and action, which will gather up 
whatever is good and true — and where do we 
not find some goodness, and some truth, though 
it be in an almost infinitesimal degree? — and 
unite it in one harmonious whole. Is all this 
possible ? Theoretically, we believe, it is. 
Practically, we fear, it is a more difficult 
achievement than some people imagine. If 
we ask, Who is equal to a task like this? we 
are met with the prophetic announcement of 
the coming Man, who is to be saint or sage, 
poet or philosopher, or, peradventure, all these 
in one ! It is thus that an air of romance and 
ridicule is thrown over a subject which contains 
a great truth, and is worthy of being discussed 
with all due solemnity and sobriety of mind. 
Liberty ! Fraternity ! . Equality ! When we 
hear such words we scarce know whether to 
laugh or be angry, so absurd, so vicious, so wild 
are their associations ; and yet these are but the 
exaggerated expressions of sentiments and as- 
pirations that lie very deep, and are working 
like leaven in the souls of our most earnest 
and spiritual thinkers. All classes of men 
have, in fact, caught the infection. There is 






CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 157 

a positive enthusiasm abroad upon the subject, 
and truly it is a theme well calculated to enkin- 
dle enthusiasm — none more so. Surely these 
aspirations, this enthusiasm, are not wholly of 
this earth, and are not doomed to pass away, 
and to die like music. Certain it is, that this is 
one of the features and tendencies of the age, 
and it is well to note it, and, if possible, to 
guide it, for this is precisely what is needed. 

What does the age want ? What would it be 
at ? Can it tell ? Not exactly perhaps ; still 
less can it tell how to get at it. It is a sadly- 
disordered world w^e live in, that is clear. It 
has long been so, and in this respect w T e are no 
worse than those who went before. The ele- 
ments of strife abound in society, and set indi- 
vidual against individual, family against family, 
nation against nation, sect against sect. But 
when was it otherwise ? There is nothing new 
in all this ; only there is this difference, and it 
is an important one, and all in favor of our own 
times, that the world is groaning more heavily 
under this disorganization, and is making des- 
perate efforts to right itself. It is getting 
angry, in fact, with its condition, and is re- 
solved, it seems, to bear it no longer ! But 
what if it must bear it ? What if the disorders 



158 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

it feels so acutely — the discord and strife that 
tear it asunder, and split it into a thousand 
fragments — arise out of moral causes, and are 
inseparable from these ? What if, in being dis- 
satisfied with its condition, it is, in reality, find- 
ing fault with the moral government of God! 
"It is hard to kick against the pricks," and yet 
this is precisely what the world is doing. It 
has never ceased to feel, more or less, its mis- 
ery. And yet I believe that up to this hour it 
is as ignorant of the cau>e and origin of tlu 
ever. The cause of this disorder, this dishar- 
mony, is sin. And this reveals to us more 
clearly, perhaps, than any other aspect of it, 
what is the true character of sin, as apostasy 
from God. It is the act of the creature disso- 
ciating himself from the Creator — so far, of 
course, and only so far as this is possible. It is 
an attempt to throw off his authority. It is an 
assertion of independence. We speak of the 
fall of man. ]S~ow, what is this but just the 
breaking up of the race into so many isolated 
units, into so many would-be independent agen- 
cies ? The true center of imity was abandoned, 
and as many new centers set up as there are 
individuals, each one seeking to make himself 
the center of a sphere more or less large, and 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 159 

to draw toward hini the homage of others. 
This is sin— an essentially-revolutionary, dis- 
uniting, disorganizing thing. The result of it 
is a moral chaos, utter confusion, nothing in its 
right place, element warring with element, no 
order, no beauty, but a formless void with deep 
darkness brooding over all, and aggravating the 
horror of the scene. This is the fruit of sin, 
or rather it is sin itself, sin perpetuating itself, 
and acting fully out its own spirit and tendency 
on the arena of this world. Such a state of 
things can not cure itself; it can only grow 
worse and worse. There is within the world 
itself no restorative power, no principle of rec- 
tification. It has entered on a downward prog- 
ress which it can not check ; a principle of 
departure has been set in motion which it can 
not counteract. It can not be otherwise. That 
such a world as ours should be a happy, peace- 
ful, united world is simply impossible. The 
family of man has thrown off the control of 
their common parent, and the consequences 
have been such as we see exhibited in the case 
of families among ourselves ; they have quar- 
reled with one another, they have fallen to 
pieces, they have disputed about the inherit- 
ance, they have become estranged from each 



160 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

other in heart and interest. There was then 
felt the grievous want of a common bond of 
union — of one center of attraction — which 
would preserve them, each in his own little 
orbit, and cause them to move with the reg- 
ularity, and the music of the spheres. Even 
so it is with the universal family. Even so 
apparently it is throughout all the various 
departments of God's vast universe. There is 
first a common dependence upon some one 
grand central object which serves as the con- 
necting link of the whole system, and then 
there is a mutual inter-dependence, or relation 
of utility of each to each. There is no such 
thing as absolute independence to be found any 
where except in the supreme object, the infinite 
and eternal One; no where do we meet with 
that perfect isolation and self-sufficiency which 
it is the wild dream of fallen man to establish 
for himself. Mad attempt ! and impious as it is 
foolish. Vain man ! he knows not that he is at 
war with the whole character of God, and with 
the constitution of the whole universe, natural 
and moral. 

The race, then, has broken loose from God, 
and has fallen into a state of disunion. There 
is no fellowship, no community and interchaj 






CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 161 

of heart and soul between man and God. It 
is this only, be it particularly noticed, that is 
worthy of the name of fellowship. For true 
fellowship is a deep thing ; it lies not on the 
surface ; it implies sympathy, oneness of mind, 
mutual understanding and agreement, familiar 
and friendly intercourse, the responsive beat of 
heart to heart, soul answering to soul as face 
answers to face in water. Unless we lay hold 
of the deep, spiritual import of this word fel- 
lowship or communion, we shall not get into the 
heart of this subject. We shall not be able to 
understand how completely sin interfered with 
such a fellowship as this, introducing, as it did, 
an element of estrangement, alienating man 
from God, and by consequence man from man. 
This is going to the root of the matter, and it 
is always right to do this when we can. This 
is laying bare the fundamental evil. This is 
tracing the malady up to its origin, and the 
origin of the evil suggests the remedy. What 
is required, upon the supposition of any reunion 
of the estranged parties ? You will at once 
say, A new center of unity. And what is that ? 
Christianity reveals it. It is the person of 
Christ. And this lets us into the reason of the 

marvelous constitution of his person. The 
11 



162 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

problem to be solved, the difficulty to be met, 
was tliis : How shall the breach be healed, and 
the divided family of man be made one — one 
with God, and so one with each other ? how 
shall the disjecta membra of the human race be 
brought together under one head ? how shall 
those separate parts, these conflicting units, be 
gathered up into one grand unity ? how, out of 
the ruins of the fall, shall there be erected a 
new temple, more enduring and more glorious 
than the first ? This center of unity, this new 
head, this repairer of the breach, this builder 
of the temple, is Immanuel. Let me be but 
united somehow to his person — and the Gospel 
tells me how, through faith produced in my 
heart by the grace of the divine Spirit — and 
forthwith I become a member of that new fam- 
ily, of which God is the reconciled and spiritual 
Father, and Christ himself the elder brother. 
But the main point now before us is, how the 
person of the Mediator was constituted with a 
view to this. Mark, then, how the two constit- 
uent elements, the divine and human, conspire 
to this effect, and how this is brought out in the 
expression in the 23d verse : "I in them, and 
thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
one;'' or, as it is said in the 20th verse, "that 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 163 

they may be one in us." I in them; how could 
this be, if he were not possessed of true man- 
hood? Thou in me; how could this be, if he 
were not possessed of true Godhead ? The per- 
son of Christ thus lays hold of both parties, 
and the glorious result is thus expressed, that 
they may he one in us. In US ; the whole 
majesty and mystery of the matter comes out 
here. In us ; this is the keystone of this sub- 
lime arch that with rainbow span unites heaven 
and earth together. In US ; this is the founda- 
tion and measure of this union of which we 
speak — this the proper order in this reuniting 
of long alienated parties : first the oneness of 
Christ — for it is the incarnate Son that is here 
spoken of, and not the eternal word merely — 
with the Father ; then the believer's oneness 
with Christ ; and, finally, the believer's oneness 
with other believers, constituting the redeemed 
and sanctified Church, or household of God. 
It is a universal fellowship this, including in one 
ample grasp the ever-blessed and adorable Trin- 
ity, together with the whole family in heaven 
and earth — all saints, and not only all saints, 
but all angels, who seem also to be gathered 
under this new head, for the purpose of glorify- 
ing him, and insuring their greater blessedness 



164 ASPECTS OF CHEISTIANITT. 

and stability. " That they may all be one in 
us; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee!" 
I will not venture to explain this union. There 
is nothing like it in nature. Symbolism here 
utterly fails us. There is no union so high, so 
holy, so intimate as this. Human language 
must, therefore, necessarily come short of a full 
setting forth of it. Y\ x e may conjoin with it the 
terms moral, mystical, and the like, but it is a 
theme fitted rather for adoring contemplation 
than for formal discussion. It is truly in a 
most deep and mysterious sense that believers 
become one "with each other, and one with the 
Father and the Son. The word identity, I do 
not like here ; it savors of earth and its mate- 
rialistic tendencies. We must really take care 
lest, in our anxiety to exalt this union, and to 
say fine things about it, we fall into something 
not unlike the Hindoo doctrine of absorption, or 
into a species of evangelical pantheism. It be- 
comes us to speak with reverence on such a 
subject. We must never lose sight of the dis- 
tance between the finite and infinite. We must 
beware of using undue liberties with God, for 
he is in heaven and we are on earth; therefore 
ought our words to be few. But while we 
would avoid exaggeration, we would be far from 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 165 

explaining away the language of Scripture, and 
depriving it of all meaning and reality. It is 
the Savior himself who speaks in this wonderful 
passage of the relation subsisting between him 
and his Father, and between both and those 
given to him. And we would hear him with 
mingled faith and awe. We would not doubt 
that there is something real — far more real 
than our minds can yet conceive or express — in 
the language he uses on this occasion. We 
would listen to him with the spiritual ear. We 
would hear him speaking to us in the words of 
earth, but in the ideas of the spiritual and 
heavenly world. And as we thus sit in rever- 
ence at his feet, and ask him to make us feel, 
though we can not utter to others, nor shape in 
our own thoughts even, the Divine truth and 
love which this prayer breathes — ! do we not 
experience an elevation of spirit which is heaven 
begun upon earth ? Do we not pass from the 
cold region of abstractions into the sphere of 
the personal, the heavenly, the divine? Are 
not earth's best unions and fellowships felt to 
be poor, to be shadowy and unsubstantial, in 
comparison with this new union and fellowship 
into which we are introduced ? Does not some 
voice within us whisper that here only is the 



166 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

true, the real, the lasting, the everlasting ? 
Yes ; we feel that we are linked in indissoluble 
ties to the eternal throne, and the "everlasting 
kingdom of our Lord and Savior." YVe feel that 
vre are somehow mysteriously bound up with the 
Divine existence, and with that of all holy and 
intelligent beings renewed after the Divine ini- 
age, and formed to show forth the Divine glory ! 
In thus treating of Christianity as a fellow- 
ship — as the deepest and truest of all fellow- 
ship — we are led to take a very profound view 
of it; we are carried right into the very heart 
and core of it. We are furnished with the best 
possible antidote, and counteractive to a mere 
formal, ceremonial, superstitious Christianity — a 
Christianity, that is, that rests in doctrines or 
ordinances, and never gets farther than what is 
external and sensible. There is a great deal 
of such Christianity in the midst of us. There 
may be some sentiment, some beauty, some 
truth about it, but there is no deep fellowship 
in it. It does not bring you face to face with 
God, heart to heart with man. It rather comes 
between the soul and God, increasing the nat- 
ural pride and selfishness of our nature. There 
is no depth in it, no warm affection, no genuine 
sympathy. It does not go down to the pro- 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 16T 

foundest depths of tlie soul, awakening a new, 
inner life, and giving birth to a new, spiritual 
experience. And. thus it is that we know no 
better test of one's religious state than this. 
Do you know any thing of Christianity as a 
fellowship? has it become to you the basis of 
a union and communion with the spiritual 
world ? has it lifted you above the sphere of 
which self is the center, and drawn you toward 
a new divine center, in relation to which, 
and as seen from which, " all old things are 
passed away, and all things are become new?" 
has it opened your heart, and taught you to 
love all that is holy and TJod-like, and to aspire 
after it ? No unrenewed person can stand this 
test. He may stand many other tests, but not 
this one. Ah ! we have spied the nakedness of 
the land. The formalist stands before us in 
all his nakedness. He feels this himself, and 
shrinks from the disclosure that has been made. 
This view of Christianity as a fellowship is im- 
portant, also, not only as revealing its essential 
character, but as exhibiting it in a truly-grand 
and attractive light. It is a sublime privilege, 
this fellowship, to which it would introduce us 
all ; and is not such fellowship the craving of 
every heart ? Was not man made for it ? Is 



168 ASPECTS OF CHKISTIANITY. 

he not possessed of capacities -winch fit him for 
the enjoyment of it? Is he not doomed to end- 
less disappointment in seeking for it where it is 
not to be found? Is not this the secret wish of 
every Iranian being, ! that I had some object 
with whom I might hold communion sweet, in 
whom I might discern the reflection of my own 
soul, from whom I might receive back again the 
expression of my ow^n confiding affection? It 
is. And now mark how exactly Christianity is 
adapted to this want of our nature, this craving 
of our heart. If it did not provide this fellow- 
ship, it would come so far short of a perfect 
adaptation to humanity*. It meets every one of 
us in our vain chase after this form of happi- 
ness, and invites us to taste of reconciliation 
with God, and to enter into the bosom of his 
spiritual family on whom he bestows his love, 
because they only are capable of relishing it; 
so that we may be able to say with all true 
believers, "truly our fellowship is with the Fa- 
ther, and with his Son Christ Jesus, and with 
one another." Let me be but at peace with 
God through faith in the great propitiation ; let 
me cease to have fellowship with the world, 
which is the enemy of God; let me become 
possessed of spirituality of mind whereby I 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 169 

may be able to relish the society of a spiritual 
being, and forthwith my heart is at rest. I 
have now got the fellowship my soul was made 
for. This is what the Gospel brings to us ; and 
unless we have got this, we have hold of noth- 
ing. We have not entered into the spirit of 
Christianity as a religion of peace, of love, of 
confidence, of divine communion. 

I call Christianity, then, a fellowship, because 
it restores me to fellowship with God, with na- 
ture, with man. 

With (rod. It brings back to me, if I am a 
believer, the presence of Jehovah as of old in 
the garden of Eden. I walk with him in peace 
and friendship, as Adam did in its sacred bow- 
ers. He comes down at his own chosen times, 
and especially as he then did, in the hour of 
calm contemplation, when the soul is set free 
from the world's business, and is desiring his 
presence — a holy calm most suitable for such 
communion ; and I am not afraid of his coming. 
I no longer hide myself from him beneath some 
lying refuge, as unfit to screen me from his ob- 
servation, as the branches of the trees of Para- 
dise. I know his voice, and it is music in mine 
ear, for it is the voice of love and not of terror ; 
it has spoken forgiveness to my soul, and its 



170 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

accents no longer alarm me. I am at peace 
with God. I understand his nature ; I love his 
authority ; I desire conformity to his image ; I 
look forward with joy to dwelling forever in his 
immediate presence. This is religion. This is 
Christianity. I do fear — I greatly fear — there 
is very little of this fellowship with God sought 
after by us, though the Gospel has opened the 
way to it, and has made ample provision for its 
being enjoyed, especially in solemn ordinances ; 
and because of this want of close fellowship 
with God, our souls are low in grace and in 
comfort. Let us know our privilege, and avail 
ourselves of it. 

With nature. I think that none but a Chris- 
tian can thoroughly understand and enjoy na- 
ture. Only a believer can enter fully into it, 
and hold communion with the spirit of order, 
and beauty, and love, that breathes and reigns 
through it all. Christianity does not forbid the 
enjoyment of nature. It does not represent 
nature as an unholy thing. It does not bid us 
look upon its fair and smiling face with a scowl. 
And why is it that the Christian can enter into 
the deepest fellowship with nature ? Because 
he can look upon its glories, " and smiling say, 
my Father made them all." Acquaint thyself 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 171 

with Gf-od, is the profound sentiment of Cop- 
per, than whom, notwithstanding the cloud 
that darkened so many of his years, no one 
ever had a more intense love for nature, sim- 
ple, beautiful, holy nature — Acquaint thyself 
with Grod, if thou wouldst taste his works. 
This is the secret of the Christian's keen 
relish for every thing in nature, from the 
"meanest flower that scents the gale," up 
through endless forms and gradations of beauty 
and grandeur* He knows God, and he sees 
his hand and hears his voice in all things. 
He is at peace with him who made the world, 
and therefore he is at peace with the world 
itself. All nature is a revelation to him, where 
he reads of the Spirit who garnished those 
glorious heavens, and the Son, who upholds 
the whole fabric of creation, and the Father, 
who, with more than paternal care, opens 
his hand liberally, and satisfies the wants of 
every thing that lives. He can not open his 
eyes but he sees some symbol that utters a 
great truth, or shadows forth a holy relation, 
or speaks of a high privilege or promise to 
be realized in a better world, or testifies in 
behalf of some divine perfection, or exhibits 
some impressive aspect of the Divine char- 



172 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

acter. So long as I am at war -with God, I 
am at war with nature, too. How can it be 
otherwise? The curse rests upon me, and on 
every thing I engage in, for my sake. But 
when the curse is lifted up from me, how 
changed then is the face of all creation! My 
heart bounds with joy before this image of 
my Maker's and Redeemer's power. My soul 
leaps forth to hold converse with this wondrous 
frame of things. My pulse beats responsive 
to the great heart of nature. My voice min- 
gles with its never-ceasing anthem of praise. 
My spirit bows before the majesty of the 
indwelling and energizing Spirit — no mere 
phantom, like the Platonic soul of the world, 
but the very Spirit of God, the life and light of 
all created things ! I worship at its altar, but 
not the abstraction men call Nature. I wor- 
ship the divinity that is enshrined in the 
temple — Him — the living and eternal One, 
who remains invisible to mortal eye, behind 
a vail of exquisite workmanship. Nature be- 
comes to me a poem, a hymn, to which I can 
attune my soul, and which helps me to sing 
in louder strains the praises of my God and 
Savior. 

And with man. I believe there is no true 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 173 

sympathy, no true fellowship of heart beyond 
the pale of Christian influence. It is the 
Gospel alone that destroys the selfishness of 
our nature, and teaches us to love one another 
out of a pure heart fervently. The deepest 
and truest fellowship is between Christian and 
Christian — a fellowship of love to an unseen 
Savior, a fellowship of joys, and hopes, and 
fears, that lie quite beyond the circle of a 
natural man's experience. Keal oneness of 
mind, true unity and community of soul, ex- 
ists only within the spiritual family of God. 
In this deep sense we speak of Christianity as 
a fellowship, as a society formed on peculiar 
principles, and separated from the rest of the 
world — chosen out of the fallen family of 
Adam. There is a loose way of talking of 
the universal fatherhood of Gocl, and the uni- 
versal brotherhood of man, which is very dan- 
gerous, inasmuch as there is some truth mixed 
up with much error. It is very true that in 
a certain sense God is the father of all men; 
"have we not all one father; hath not one 
God created us?" It is also true that all 
men, in a certain sense, are brethren, being 
partakers of one common nature, and included 
alike in the offer of a common salvation. But 



174 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

there is a higher fatherhood than this, and a 
higher brotherhood than this, even that of 
grace, of faith, of regeneration. Christianity, 
therefore, is a fellowship, not merely as pro- 
mulgating certain truths concerning the uni- 
versal benevolence of the Deity, or concerning 
the original and innate equality of man, but 
as the appointed means of establishing upon 
earth a new family, a new society, where God 
is a father, and all the members are his chil- 
dren, and each other's brethren, in a higher 
sense than nature knows. This new family, 
this new society, is the Church. Here is that 
higher unity after which the world is striving. 
Here, and here alone, are to be found liberty, 
fraternity, equality — liberty, in deliverance from 
sin, in its guilt and power; fraternity, in be- 
ing all "the children of God, through faith 
in Christ Jesus;" equality, in a joint par- 
ticipation of the blessings of the Savior's pur- 
chase. 

See what a beautiful picture of the unity, 
the oneness of the Church is drawn by the 
apostle: "There is one body and one spirit, 
even as ye are called in one hope of your 
calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. 
One God and Father of all, who is above all, 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 175 

and through all, and in you all." This one- 
ness, this perfect ' unity, is far indeed from 
being fully realized even in the Church, which 
is the holy home of the only true fellowship 
that is to be found on earth. Nevertheless, 
there is a real, substantial, underlying unity 
in the Church, throughout all its various parts, 
for this is essential to the true idea of a 
Church. It is a spiritual, invisible, unity and 
therefore realizable only by faith. The world 
can not realize it, for "the natural man re- 
ceiveth not the things of God." But the 
Christian realizes it, delights to think of it, 
and in spirit enters into the communion of 
saints — that great doctrine of the primitive 
Church — that grand privilege which is, I fear, 
made too light of in these latter days, and 
has, in fact, almost dropped out of the creed 
of Christendom. "I believe in the holy cath- 
olic Church, and in the communion of saints." 
We all believe in this, or ought to do it. 
These are great truths, and faith should fasten 
upon them, and keep hold of them, not in any 
narrow, sectarian sense — which is not the true 
sense of them, but is a miserable travesty and 
perversion — but in a far deeper, truer, and 
more spiritual sense. And the full realization 



176 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of this substantial, essential, inner unity, would 
lead more, perhaps, than any thing else to 
bring about that more external, circumstantial, 
visible unity, the want of which is the great 
cause of grief to the believer, and of scandal 
to the world. It seems to be for this that the 
Savior here prays. It can not be for a mere 
outward, mechanical union, such as Rome boasts 
of, for there is no truth and reality in such a 
union. It is a base counterfeit, a practical lie, 
a mere make-believe. Neither can it be a un- 
ion formed on worldly principles, and in the com- 
promise of all that is valuable in the Church's 
constitution, but it must be a union based on 
truth — a union including only those who are 
sanctified, set apart, brought out from the world. 
As our Savior prays — " Sanctify them through 
thy truth, thy word is truth/' Neither can it 
be a union based on what is fundamental and 
essential in Christianity; for this, as we have 
seen, exists already between all those who are 
in union with Christ. It must, therefore, be 
some such visible, formal, manifested union as 
shall command the notice and admiration of 
the world, and, what is more, shall command 
their faith and submission to the Redeemer. 
Something like this was exhibited by the apos- 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 177 

tolic Church, and with the most astonishing 
results as affecting the triumph of the Gospel. 
And we have only to conceive that this state 
of matters had continued for ages, to be con- 
vinced that it would have issued in the conver- 
sion of the whole world. Why did it not 
continue? This is a deep question. We can 
not answer it. For any thing we can tell, 
higher ends may be attained by the altered 
state of things. For there is a sad and strange 
alteration. The visible Church is broken up 
into fragments. The communion of saints is 
impaired. Christianity does not now appear in 
its full character as a fellowship, as a connect- 
ing link, as a binding cement ; but rather as an 
element of division, in addition to the many 
other elements previously existing. I fear we 
have got too much reconciled to this unseemly 
sight. I fear we do not feel as we ought the 
sin and the shame of this disunion. Nay, we 
are but too ready, many of us, to increase, and 
that on the most frivolous and unpardonable 
grounds, the divisions already existing. We 
have not the mind of Christ in this matter. 
It was not with satisfaction or indifference he 
looked, with prophetic eye, on what the Church 

would become. He does not look with satis- 
12 



178 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

faction on it now. Only mark what prom- 
inence he assigns in his intercessory prayer to 
this one topic. He dwells on it w^ith more 
force, and at greater length, than on any other. 
He refers to it in the 11th verse. He returns 
to it again at the 21st verse, and devotes three 
whole verses to this engrossing theme. Yes, 
it filled his mind, and it should fill ours. It 
entered largely into his supplications, and it 
should enter largely into ours. Do we not 
learn from this that prayer, much prayer, earn- 
est prayer, believing prayer, is the destined 
means for attaining this much-to-be-desired 
union ? It is God's own work. No reasoning 
or eloquence of man can accomplish it. This 
has been tried, and has failed. It is indeed a 
most Herculean task — a hopeless one, we are 
tempted to say, looking at it with the eye of 
reason. Many things have been tried. Has 
this been tried? Has there been enough of 
prayer among the people of God? I believe 
not. We have gone about it too much in our 
own strength, and with unworthy, inferior mo- 
tives. Let the Church — the whole Church — 
betake itself to prayer, and prayer will bring 
down the Holy Spirit, the author of all peace 
and concord. We must have more of the 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 179 

"communion of the Holy Ghost" before we 
have more of the "communion of saints. " It 
is unbelief to doubt that such prayer would 
remain unanswered. It is unbelief to conclude 
that the petition offered up eighteen hundred 
years ago, That they all may be one, as thou, 
Father, art in me, and I in thee, has been disre- 
garded, and has become a dead letter — a thing 
that is past and gone, leaving no fruits behind. 
We dare not indulge a thought like this. We 
can not let go the hope that a brighter era is 
coming for the Church, when this prayer will 
be answered beyond our highest expectations. 
It is joy even to think of such a happy period 
of love, unity, and fellowship. What must it 
be to live in it ! And we may see it. Yes, 
you and I may see it. All unlikely as it is in 
the view of unbelief, it may come, and that 
soon. It may burst upon our ravished gaze, 
and leave us exclaiming, " What hath God 
wrought !" And the world, too, will wonder at 
it — at such a phenomenon, utterly unacountable 
on their principles. Ay, and I believe they 
will do more than wonder at it, they will be- 
lieve ; for I can not persuade myself that when 
the Savior said, That the world may believe, 
may knotv that thou hast sent me, and loved me, 



180 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

he meant nothing more than this, that materials 
would thereby be afforded for the world's deeper 
condemnation. Whatever others may think, I 
cling to the belief that this opens up a door of 
hope for this poor, unbelieving world of ours; 
that it is prophetic of that glorious era when 
" all shall know the Lord, from the least to the 
greatest*" I think it points to the taking away 
of a great let and hinderance in the way of the 
conversion of the world. I think it intimates 
that even the Church itself is standing in the 
way of this most desirable consummation — a 
terrible thought, and one calculated deeply to 
humble us all ; and that Church revival, Church 
purification, Church union, must, according to 
the arrangements of Infinite Wisdom, precede 
the full triumph of the truth. The view I ven- 
ture to take of it is this : the Church is God's 
instrument for advancing his glory in the salva- 
tion of men, and this instrument must be rightly 
wielded if it would be effectual. Whatever 
interferes with the efficiency of this instrument- 
ality interferes with its ultimate results. In 
spite of all its imperfections, the Church has 
done much for the world already. When it is 
more perfect, it will do more. 

Meanwhile, let each believer seek for closer 



CHRISTIANITY A FELLOWSHIP. 181 

fellowship with Christ, and with all who are 
Christ's. Let each Church draw nearer and 
nearer to its divine Head and Redeemer, and , 
all Churches who hold the Head, and build on 
the one foundation. Let us all desire a more 
abundant baptism of the Holy Ghost. Let us 
all imbibe more of the spirit of the Savior. 
Let us all come out more distinctly from the 
world's fellowship. Let us all submit more to 
the sanctifying power of the truth. Let us all 
enter more fully into the genius of Christianity 
as a system of unity and of love. And when 
our hearts are ready to fail us, as we think of 
the sore divisions and bitter estrangements that 
have crept into the one family — a deep device 
of the great enemy ! — let us encourage ourselves 
with this sublime supplication, and evermore 
plead it before the throne on high : " Neither 
pray I for these alone, but for them also which 
shall believe on me through their word ; that 
they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in 
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in 
us : that the world may believe that thou hast 
sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me 
I have given them ; that they may be one, even 
as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that 
they may be made perfect in one ; and that the 



182 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

world may know that thou hast sent me, and 
hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." Him 
the Father heareth always. 



THE END. 



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